East Meets West
by Tre Corde
Summary: In which Imperial China and Ancient Rome fervently attempt to stalk one another, vast distance across the Silk Road notwithstanding. As one can imagine, neither has much success.
1. Rome I: It Begins

**Warnings****:****  
**

Including but not limited to: anachronistic references, awkward humor, historical accuracies, historical _in_accuracies, gratuitous history in general, whiplash dramedy, occasional profanity, minor OCs, slow updates.

* * *

**Introduction****:**

Imperial China and the Roman Empire were very much aware of each other, despite being situated so far away from one another. Oh, they didn't know each other _well_—quite the opposite, in fact. That's what makes this so fun.

As for the story, I originally imagined this as a sweeping historical drama of epic proportions, until I started plotting everything out and realized that I didn't actually _want_ to write a giant angst-fest. In the wake of such self-discovery, I promptly three-sixtied the heck out of this thing and ended up with...comedic interpretations of semi-random moments in history.

So, _Hetalia_, basically.

(By the way, this story takes place in the same universe as _Constellations_, for those who've read that. For those who haven't, don't worry. It's hardly relevant.)

Enjoy!

* * *

—:—

* * *

_Part 1_

**ROME**

How Rome and China Almost Met

* * *

—:—

* * *

Greece was a pearl, a gem, a flawless treasure only fit to be sung in hushed voices of legend. She was the crown of Olympus, haloed in glory, unyielding in strength. She was the very definition of life and love, outshining even the lush beauty of Venus herself. She was the morning star to which all the heavens beheld in awe. She was—

She was not impressed with Rome's fawning praises.

"What do you want, Rome," she said. A pause. Then a sigh. "And it's _Aphrodite, _you cow. Not Venus."

Rome shot her a wounded glance. "Why would I _want_ anything other than the splendor of your presence?" He folded his hands dramatically across his chest, presumably in an attempt to look sincere. Greece wasn't entirely sure. Either way, he was doing a commendable job of imitating one of Egypt's mummies.

"For one thing, you've been staring at Massalia for a while now." She flicked her hand, watching with dry amusement as Rome's eyes followed the jangling bracelet on her wrist. "For another, when have you _not_ wanted anything?"

When it became clear that Greece was not falling for the debonair act, Rome straightened and smiled sheepishly.

"You know me too well, Greece! It's just that, ah, there's this little patch of land I'm kind of interested in, you know, along the southern coast—"

"You want a piece of Massalia," Greece said.

"Only a little piece," he said, going for a pained, puppy-eyed look. Greece examined his constipated expression, idly noting that he pulled off "debonair" with far more ease than he did "innocent."

"And you want Massalia because…"

"Because it's amazing and I love you?"

She considered this. Then, in one languid stroke, she reached over and gave him a hard pinch on the arm.

"Ow! Fine, fine! I want it because it's easier to fight Gaul from your place, right? And—and weren't you having trouble with Gaul, anyway? So it's a win-win situation. I get to beat him up, and you…_don't_ beat him up!"

Greece nodded slowly. The prospect did have its appeal. Still…

"Aside from Gaul," she said, "this wouldn't happen to have anything to do with your obsession with Hispania, would it?"

He froze. "No."

She looked at him. She pinched him.

"Yes," he amended.

_Of course._

Greece eyed him wearily. "At this rate, you're going to run out of land to conquer," she said in half-hearted warning. Hispania was about as far west as one could possibly get, unless Rome planned on annexing Poseidon's kingdom as well. Actually, she wouldn't put it past him. The man was, quite frankly, a maniac.

Said maniac beamed at her. Teeth flashed. She resisted the urge to shield her eyes.

"Why," Rome declared, "that's what the East is for, my dear."

—:—

At the eastern terminus of the Silk Road, a man was arguing with his imaginary friend.

Or at least, that was what the citizens of Chang'an beheld. It was a wholly unimpressive sight, and one that was more than a little disturbing. Grown men oughtn't be seen arguing with themselves, after all, and especially not _this_ grown man. It wasn't proper. What would the children think?

But for once, the personification of China didn't really care how he looked, because he had somewhat more important things to worry about. Xiongnu, his pig-faced arch-nemesis, was continuing to prove himself a pain in the unmentionables. And as if that wasn't enough, China's boss had cheerfully decided to _lose his mind_.

"It'd be nice to go with them," Tianming said blithely as he floated unseen above the streets of the capital. "A _Journey to the West_, if you will." The dragon then chuckled to himself, as if appreciating an inside joke. China had no idea what Tianming was talking about, and he was quite sure he didn't want to know. He'd elect to stay sane, thank you very much.

"Tianming," China said in his special, patient voice usually reserved for small children and madmen. "I can't just go gallivanting off into strange lands. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but _we're in the middle of a war_."

The dragon looked amused, as if he found China's attempt at rationality unbearably cute.

"Yes," Tianming said, echoing China's patronizing tone. "Which is all the more reason for some time off. Think of it as a vacation. You've been so stressed lately, it's making my scales itch."

"Middle. Of. War." China wondered if it would help if he grabbed a stick and diagrammed it all out in a patch of dirt. Maybe Tianming was simply a visual learner. Hasty sketches of dead stick figures would surely help him see the big picture. What part of "perilous diplomatic mission" screamed "vacation," anyway?

"Yes," Tianming said again. "Which is why we're sending an embassy in the first place. Because no one else is willing to help. Not Yuezhi, not Gojoseon—or do you not remember?"

If that wasn't a metaphorical punch in the gut, China didn't know what was. As if he _needed_ to be reminded of his deteriorating relationship with Gojoseon.

"Besides," his boss continued, oblivious to China's distress, "I'll still be here. You'll have the Mandate of Heaven on your side. Xiongnu will not win while you're away. Trust me."

China wanted to say that the last time he trusted the Mandate of Heaven, he ended up with a megalomaniac on the throne. But before he could even open his mouth, Tianming employed the Look. Oh, stars above, the _Look_. How a respectable, fearsome dragon was able to transform into some unholy chimeric combination of doe-eyed bunny-rabbit-piglet-puppy-kitten thing, China would never know. What he did know was that, as long as Tianming possessed the Look in his arsenal, China's hope of victory was precisely zero.

Furthermore, Tianming was right in a sense. They did need help. Sad as it was, China didn't really have any friends or family willing to back him up.

Still, it was a little embarrassing how quickly he folded.

"I…I suppose I should start packing," China said, sighing.

Tianming grinned a smile long and sharp, all traces of his previous baby animal act vanishing. "To the west, then. And stop talking to yourself, you're starting to attract strange looks."

—:—

It was settled. "Operation: Beat Up Gaul" was a go.

Rome rubbed his hands gleefully. This was going to be _good_. He was going to get back at Gaul for totally messing up his capital a couple of centuries back—that time when Gaul had _annihilated_ Rome's precious collections of vases, paintings, and nude statues. It was tragedy. It was a massacre. And it could have been a whole lot worse had a gaggle of fat geese not warned him about the impending attack. (Long story.)

A rustling of foliage caught his attention, and Rome stilled in excitement. This was it. The moment he'd been waiting for.

Gaul was here.

The instant the figure emerged, Rome sprung forward, a gallant battle cry upon his lips:

"This one's for the nude statues!"

Gaul ducked under his swing and caught his arm in an iron grip. Odd, Rome didn't recall the man being quite that flexible.

"Rome," Gaul said, exasperated, "what in Tartarus do you think you're doing?"

And since when had Gaul sounded so weirdly feminine? Rome squinted, willing his eyesight to penetrate through layers of murky gloom. The sun had already retired for the day, and at the moment it was difficult to really make anything out. It was that time of month when the moon was absent, and the stars never helped anyway, so everything was about as dark as Greece's hair…

Greece. Oh.

"What are you doing here, Greece?" he asked in surprise.

"Well, I have a colony here," she said, "as you very well know. What are _you_ doing here?"

"Protecting you from Gaul, of course."

She heaved a sigh that somehow managed to sound both patient and impatient at the same time. Rome was impressed. He hadn't known such a thing was physically possible.

"That's fine," she said. "But you've been giggling up and down the coast for the past few days now, and it's scaring my merchants. Could you maybe tone done your…" She gestured vaguely. "Your _you_-ness?"

Rome scratched his head with his free arm. Did he _giggle_, really? Surely not.

He opened his mouth to reply, but then the foliage rustled for the second time and he ditched his righteous indignation in favor of giddy anticipation. This was it; the moment he'd been waiting for. For real, this time.

A dark figure emerged—armored and masculine, Rome noted with certainty—and Rome wasted no time lunging happily at Gaul, fully prepared for some light, manly conversation. With fists.

Unfortunately, he had overlooked the fact that Greece still had one of his arms clenched in a pincer hold. He tripped, sprawling toward the ground in a swooping half-stumble. Colorful language danced through the air. Throughout it all, Greece hadn't budged an inch, and Rome was left hanging limply off of her arm like a strange, boneless creature.

Oh, but that woman was strong. Sometimes, he forgot that Sparta had been Greece's, too.

"Greece, I know I'm hopelessly irresistible, but you can let go of me now," he said in what he thought was a very suave voice.

Greece ignored him. Rome silently despaired.

"Uh, Greece? It's—it's kind of hard to fight Gaul with only one arm—"

"That's not Gaul," Greece said, absently releasing his arm.

Rome blinked up from where he'd collapsed on the ground. He scrambled into an upright position, and then saw that Greece was right.

Gaul's hair had _never_ been that long. Or pale. Or bright. Sweet Jupiter, this guy's head reflected enough light to qualify as its own mini-moon.

"Oh. Who are you?" Rome asked.

Through the dimness he could just barely make out a scowl on the stranger's face. "Germania," came the reply. "Who are…where…?"

"Roman Republic," Rome said with a winsome smile. "In answer to both of your questions."

"Actually, you're in Massalia," corrected Greece, the spoilsport. "One of my colonies."

Rome waved a careless hand. "Yes, yes, close enough." He casually dodged Greece's elbow. "So, Germania, you're new here? Never visited old Rome, before?"

"No."

Oh, that laconic wit. Rome grinned.

"Well, allow me to welcome you to the greatest civilization in the Mediterranean! How about I show you around the place? You up for a grand tour? Trust me, you're going to love it…"

—:—

After a frightfully long journey, the Chinese embassy finally arrived in Anxi. They had traversed tens of thousands of _li_ over mountains, deserts and valleys alike, braving such horrors as venomous snakes, blistering sandstorms, ruthless bandits, and unforeseen allergic reactions.

(In hindsight, the vibrant purple on the polka-dotted mushroom caps should have been fair warning against consumption.)

Their exhaustive voyage had now ground to a halt at the capital of Anxi. Not that anyone had told them it was the capital, but it certainly felt like one. Nations tended to have a nose for these things. China, in particular, was very proud of his nose.

A day's worth of rest and preparation later, and the embassy was standing at the finely crafted entrance to Anxi's seat of government, a building of pillars and arches lathered with hardened stucco. Silent attendants crept forward and ushered them inside, where they came face to face with Anxi's King of Kings.

Mithridates II had the beaked nose of a hawk, the fleeced beard of a lamb, and the round eyes of a child. China wondered for a moment if he ought to be offended by the king's grandstanding title, before brushing it off. It would be hypocritical; after all, China himself had practically _invented_ grandstanding titles. Son of Heaven and what have you.

Rudimentary inspection complete, China quickly lost interest in him. Let his men deal with Mithridates; China was here to speak to Anxi, not this baby-faced king.

His brow furrowed.

Where _was_ Anxi?

Upon raising this query with the king and his court, China learned two things.

One: Anxi was called _Parthia_ in these regions.

Two: Westerners were apparently very bad at keeping track of their own countries, because the Parthian Empire was nowhere to be found.

—:—

At the barrel-vaulted entrance of the city, the Parthian Empire stood fuming.

"No," said Parthia. "No, no, no. You are _not_ welcome here at my home. How often must I remind you? Kindly remove your fetid body from my establishment and go bother someone else."

With that, he shut the gate.

"Well, that wasn't very nice," Rome said. He glanced at Germania, who stared flatly back at him over the head of an equally deadpan horse.

…That horse.

Perhaps an explanation was in order. In preparation for Rome's grand adventure, the two travelers had picked up a pair of horses—a proud chestnut steed for Rome, and a weird speckly gray thing for Germania. Scruffiness aside, the speed at which Germania had bonded with his horse was nothing short of amazing. Rome had always been a fond proponent of equestrian love, but these two were so in sync that it was honestly starting to scare him. He could no longer tell if Germania was horse-faced or if the horse was Germania-faced.

"I thought this was supposed to be a tour of _your_ land," Ger-horse-ia said. Creepy.

Rome laughed nervously. "It is! Well, in a manner of speaking. I mean, everything out east here is eventually going to be mine, anyway. So this is like…a tour of the future!"

He faltered when Germania turned his horse around to leave. Or the horse turned Germania around to leave. Damn, Rome didn't even know anymore.

"Wait, wait! Don't go just yet, I know another way inside, aren't you curious at all? I mean, this is the Parthian Empire we're talking about. Parthia!"

—:—

Parthia.

A convergence of trade networks. A lodestone for commerce. A merchant's paradise.

Traders of all ethnicities bustled to and fro in a veritable ecosystem of economics. The rich diversity should have offered China at least a little bit of camouflage, but for some reason, his visage still managed to remain a popular point of destination for hundreds of curious gazes.

Perhaps, he mused, it was the mushrooms. He had hoped that the rash would have faded away completely by now, but there was still an odd wiggle of red on his neck. Curse that wiggle. Surreptitiously, he tried to reposition his hair to block the offending sight from view. His efforts bore little fruit; if anything, people's stares seemed to increase tenfold.

There was nothing for it, then, other than to simply ignore the attention. With as much dignity as his lopsided hair allowed, China approached the first person who he thought looked at least somewhat intelligent.

"_Xian sheng, qing wen_—" China began. The addressed man gave him a look of crystal-clear incomprehension. China paused and started over, digging for a language the man would recognize. "Excuse me. Sir, would you happen to know where I can find the Parthian Empire?"

The man stared at him thoughtfully for a while, stroking at a nonexistent beard. He opened his mouth. China leaned forward to listen.

"You are a silk man," the man said.

"I see," said China. He waited, but it seemed that nothing else was forthcoming. "…Thank you for your insight."

"_Seres_," the man insisted.

"Yes, you too."

This was more or less how every conversation proceeded to play out for the remainder of the day. It was repetitive, to say the least. And frustrating. But China was here for a diplomacy mission, not a playground fight, so to prove to himself that he had more maturity than the average eight-year-old, he reined in his temper.

His face, however, did grow steadily redder in hue as the day progressed.

Evening approached, dragging the sun in hazy descent. China leaned grumpily against the side of a vendor's stand, wondering if perhaps he could still make his way back to the embassy in time for dinner. He turned his gaze up at the sky in an attempt to judge the time.

It was ludicrously, impossibly lucky that he glanced up at that very instant, because he otherwise would not have seen—or been prepared for—the spectacle that followed.

Namely, a man came hurtling over the city wall.

Straight toward him.

Like a human-shaped arrow.

Shoving his incredulity aside, China instead focused on immediate survival and took a couple of swift steps to the right. A shriek and a crunch suggested that the stand had been splintered beyond recognition. A glance over his shoulder confirmed this fact. Meanwhile, the man-turned-projectile was rising to his feet, brushing himself off from a crash landing that by all means should have been fatal.

Such disrespect for the laws of physics could mean only one thing.

This flying man was a Nation.

"Hey, are you Parthia?" China asked bluntly. He was grumpy and tired and hungry, and his patience for diplomacy had long since worn thin.

The person that might have been Parthia peered at him, jaw slackened in surprise. He had a rugged sort of look about him, a look of a man who dealt and _reveled_ in warfare. China was instantly suspicious of him.

In response to China's inquiry, Unidentified Flying Nation gave him a look a sheer delight.

"You're a silk man!" was the informative reply. "_Seres!_"

And China felt that, all things considered, his reactions thenceforth were rather justified.

—:—

Germania wasn't sure what exactly had happened.

No. Correction. Germania knew precisely what happened. It wasn't the _what _that was proving to be problematic, but rather the _how_, and the _why_.

_How_ Rome had managed to construct a human catapult from virtually nothing would forever remain a mystery of the universe.

_Why_ Rome had deemed such a thing to be necessary (when a perfectly serviceable entrance existed on the eastern side of the city) was likewise baffling.

_Where _Rome had landed…well, Germania was getting there.

Out of some warped, pity-borne sense of responsibility, Germania had taken it upon himself to at least make sure Rome was still alive. It didn't take long for him to decide on a plan of action. Taking the aforementioned eastern entrance and retracing his steps along the other side of the wall should, in theory, lead him to the site of impact.

After securing their horses, Germania set out to search, scowling all along the way and glaring heatedly at nothing in particular. (A passing merchant fell off his donkey and several children ran off screaming, but Germania dismissed these as unrelated events and returned to his internal grumbling.) What little tolerance remained for his current situation was unraveling with dismaying rapidity. This entire misadventure with the Roman Republic was a farce at best—Germania was starting to feel like some demented version of a babysitter, which was certainly _not_ what he had signed up for when he'd migrated south from Scandinavia…

There. A crowd. If that wasn't a sign of infantile shenanigans, he didn't know what was.

(On a happier note, the people of Parthia were wonderfully polite; Germania didn't even have to say a word for the crowd to part way for him. The cowering and the groveling he could do without, but he supposed that cultural differences couldn't be helped.)

He was treated to the uninteresting sight of Rome crumpled over in a senseless heap. A young man clad in oddly voluminous clothing hovered over the body, showing clear signs of distress. To the side, a vendor sobbed brokenly over his equally broken stall. Piecing the situation together wasn't too difficult.

Germania strode over to inspect Rome's unmoving figure. "Is he dead?"

The man with ridiculous sleeves shot him a panicked glance. "No! At least, I don't think so. I hope not. I didn't mean to hit him that hard, I swear!"

Germania stared at him. Upon closer inspection, the man's dark hair was noticeably asymmetric, and there was an odd red wiggle on his neck. "You…" He shook his head. "You're a country."

"China," came the distracted reply. "Are—are you?"

Well, not so much "country" as "loose personification of various Germanic tribes," but that would take too long to explain.

"Germania," he said simply.

"And…_him?_" China's voice was steeped in bald horror._ "_Is he Parthia?"

"No."

"Oh, thank Heaven," China said, visibly relieved. "That's alright, then."

"What's going on here?"

Both countries startled, China more conspicuously than Germania. The crowd parted for a second time, revealing a tall man in merchant's attire—the same man who had given Rome an earful not so long ago.

"_That's_ Parthia," Germania said, and then watched in mild fascination as China's posture softened into something ten times more polite.

"Well?" demanded the Parthian Empire, stabbing an accusing finger at Rome's pitiful form.

"My deepest apologies," China said, sparing Parthia a brief bow. "His…sudden appearance startled me and I reacted poorly. I didn't mean to cause trouble."

Parthia's dark eyes narrowed. "You are the one responsible for this?"

"Well, I—" China floundered. "Yes, but I meant no lasting harm—"

"You assaulted this man?"

"Er, yes—"

"You are the reason he is lying on the ground, silent, immobile, possibly but not probably dead?"

"Somewhat, but—"

"Please allow me, then," Parthia said seriously, "to express my complete and utmost gratitude."

China paused, nonplussed.

"I will see to it personally that you receive the best accommodations this city has to offer," Parthia continued. "Clearly, you are a man of great moral fiber. I believe we will become great friends."

China did not seem to know what to say to that. Germania did not blame him. It wasn't every day that violence and brutality were lauded as emblems of virtue. Sometimes foreigners had all manner of odd customs.

"As for you—" Parthia pointed at Germania, who blinked at the sudden attention. "Please dispose of your garbage. Good night." He marched away, dragging a bewildered China after him.

Dispose of garbage. Germania supposed that Parthia was talking about Rome. With a sigh of annoyance, he set about relocating the body.

—:—

"Germania," Rome mumbled, contemplating the dusty Middle Eastern landscape with groggy eyes, "I had the weirdest dream about a silk man…who could fly…but then…I think he beat me up…?"

"You're an idiot," Germania informed him, before rolling over and going back to sleep. He'd deal with Rome in the morning.

—:—

…Or he would have, if Rome hadn't conveniently vanished by daybreak. A cursory inspection of Germania's surroundings revealed little about Rome's whereabouts, other than the fact that he wasn't there.

Germania considered his options. He didn't particularly hold any grievances against this recent development. It was fantastic, actually. Germania was now free to ditch Rome and return west, back to where things actually made sense.

But just as he was about to race into the nonexistent sunset, he noticed something that dashed all his plans for freedom into smithereens.

_Odin's eyeball_, Germania thought dully. _He took the horses._

* * *

—:—

* * *

**Footnotes****:**

**1] Time period**: Roughly 120 BC. China's well into the Han Dynasty, and Rome is still a republic. Accuracies: China really did send a delegation to Parthia around this time, for aid against the Xiongnu (the Han–Xiongnu War was ongoing). Inaccuracies: Rome didn't have direct contact with Parthia until 96 BC, and Romans had little knowledge of silk at this point in time.

**2] Massalia**: Marseille. Began as a Greek settlement off the coast of Gaul (modern day France). Rome, looking for a safe land route to Hispania (Iberian Peninsula), struck a deal with them. In return for knocking some Gaulish heads, Rome got a strip of land called Gallia Transalpina.

**3] Xiongnu**: Nomadic empire. Got into lots of fights with China, especially during the Han Dynasty. You can thank these guys for the existence of the Great Wall.

**4] Gojoseon**: Ancient Korea. China-Gojoseon relations weren't all that great to begin with, but they became super strained thanks to a man named Wiman (Wei Man in Chinese). Wiman was a Chinese general who, in fleeing from the general crappiness of the crumbling Qin Dynasty, was accepted as a refugee in Gojoseon. He proceeded to thank the king's hospitality by _overthrowing him_. Cue start of the Wiman Joseon and decades of festering animosity.

**5] Yuezhi**: Ancient Indo-European pseudo-nomads. (I say pseudo because they eventually settled down.) Chinese Silk Road pioneer Zhang Qian attempted to secure an alliance with them against the Xiongnu, but failed.

**6] Germania**: Rome had its first major encounter with Germanic tribes in the late 2nd century BC, when a bunch of migrating people entered Gaul, Italy, and Hispania.

**7] Geese**: Battle of Allia, sack of Rome. Legend has it that the sacred geese of Juno helped warn Romans of the invading Gauls.

**8] Parthian Empire**: Ancient Iranian empire, sandwiched between Han China and Rome. Became a hub of commerce, thanks to the Silk Road. Famously did not get along with Rome.

**9] King of Kings**: Mithridates II was the first Parthian ruler to claim this title on his coinage.


	2. Rome II: Misunderstandings

**A/N****:**

I just realized how often Rome gets injured in this story. Sorry, Rome. We love you anyway, even if this universe doesn't.

* * *

—:—

* * *

_Part 1_

**ROME**

How Rome and China Almost Met Again

* * *

—:—

* * *

Yellow.

Yellow everywhere.

China had known, of course. Even if Zhang Qian's awed reports of Anxi's rust-gold cities _hadn't_ reached his ears just a few years previous, Yuezhi's casual ramblings of her various travels provided enough information for China to entertain at least an inkling of the landscape of the West.

He still hadn't been prepared for quite so much yellow.

And now, as China waited in the conference hall for Parthia to return from an audience with his king, the _yellow_ grew more apparent than ever. The color practically dominated the room. Walls of stucco, cast with filmy sheen from wayward morning sunlight. Terracotta vases, dull gold and marbled beneath earthy glaze. Granular carvings of men and horses, sandy to both sight and touch.

All yellow.

_Unfair_, China thought as he picked up one of the vases to inspect (a stout thing with bizarre curlicues). Who was the one with the Yellow Emperor? The Yellow River? The Yellow everything? Yellow was under _China's_ jurisdiction. Parthia had no business being so yellow.

"I hope I haven't kept you waiting too long—"

China jumped. The vase jumped higher. A complicated mid-air maneuver saved the pottery from an unfortunate fate, although it left China balanced in a convoluted twist that normally would have only been possible for those with no bone structure.

So this was what it felt like to be a noodle.

"…Are you alright?" Parthia asked. Logic dictated that the question had been targeted at China, but given the motherly expression Parthia directed toward his vase, the exact addressee of the inquiry was debatable.

"Splendid," China said anyway, because he had his pride.

Parthia took the vase from China's hands, and China went about disentangling himself. Throughout the entire awkward affair, Parthia kept his eyes averted in favor of examining his decorative pot, looking up only when China had managed to seat himself at the table like a civilized person. China found himself cautiously grateful for the man's apparent tact. Parthia had seemed somewhat, well, _tactless, _upon first impression, but perhaps China had misjudged him.

"Okay, then," he said, "shall we begin?"

"You scratched one of the curlicues," Parthia noted briskly, pointing at his vase. "I can expect full compensation, I presume?"

Apparent tact, his _foot_.

"Actually, I'd really like to start—"

Parthia's eyes glinted. "You must understand, it is an article of great personal and monetary significance."

What a wonderful start to a diplomatic meeting. _Stay polite_, China thought. _Polite. Polite._

He cleared his throat. "We of the Middle Kingdom send your vase our deepest and most humble apologies. May its ceramic ancestors find it within their infinite mercy not to smite us for our grave transgression. Blessed be your urn. Now _shall we begin the meeting?_"

…Well, he tried.

Parthia stared at him, and China was already mentally packing his bags. How to explain to Tianming that he had utterly failed? Then again, it wasn't like it was anything new. Past blunders flitted through his mind—Dayuan and his coveted horses, Yuezhi and her unforthcoming alliance, Gojoseon and his…everything, really. Why was China so pathetic at diplomacy?

A long, miserable pause.

Then Parthia laughed.

"Oh, I like you," he said. "Very well, my friend; to business."

Huh. Perhaps China stood a chance of seeing this through, after all.

—:—

The square teemed with people—vendors, shoppers, travelers, handymen, children. Which was annoying, not in the least because the pressing crush of humanity made tracking someone down all the more difficult.

Fortunately, Germania had plenty of experience hunting vermin.

Sharp green eyes inspected the surroundings with an eagle's precision, searching for—ah. There. Leaning up against the water well, flirting with the local girls. Weirdly long robes flapped to the rhythm of his wild gesticulations. A bizarre cicada-like hat perched snugly around his head. Germania's eye twitched as he made a beeline toward him. Why wasn't he surprised? And just what the Hel was Rome wearing?

"_You._"

His hand came down upon Rome's shoulder, cold and swift, taloned fingers against unfamiliar fabric. Rome let out a noise that was an interesting union of startled squirrel and dying beaver. The tittering women ceased tittering.

"Oh, hello, Germania," Rome said, the upward quirk of his lips matching the quirk of his eyebrows. An expression that screamed insincerity. "Lovely morning."

Germania's grip tightened. "Where are the horses?"

"Excuse us, ladies," Rome said stiffly, waving his female entourage away. The girls departed with empty buckets and many a cautious glance toward the fuming Germanic nation.

"Well?"

Rome's smile turned placating. "Now, don't panic, but I may or may not have, er, well, I've managed to secure myself some suitable clothing—"

"You _sold_ Rosa for _clothing?_"

"Not sold, not sold! More like…mm, collateral, for when I return th—wait." Rome halted, eyes rounding with curiosity. "You named your horse?"

"That is—"

"You named it _Rosa?_"

"—_not_ the issue here—"

"Like, like Rosa as in _ros,_ as in _hros?_"

"Stop trying to change the subject—"

"So you basically named your horse '_Horsey'?_"

"_Shut up!_"

And, blessed be Odin, Rome shut up. Germania watched him cower for a few moments longer before speaking.

"You are going to tell me where you sold them," he said, finally releasing Rome's shoulder. "We are going to find Rosa—_stop snickering_—and you will return those godforsaken _clothes_. And we will leave this godforsaken city, because I am_ done_ with your godforsaken _tour_."

"…You didn't like my tour?" Rome said, looking hurt. Germania experienced a brief flash of something that was absolutely _not_ guilt.

"Never have," he said tersely, feeling even more…_not_ guilty when Rome drooped.

"Oh…but then why'd you agree to come in the first place? You didn't have to, you know."

_Because when a potential rival nation offers to show you the layout of their home_, Germania thought,_ you'd have to be an absolute dunderhead to refuse._

He neglected to say as much out loud, however. Somehow this particular train of thought seemed insensitive to share.

"I suppose it was…not all bad," Germania allowed, with a pained twist of his mouth. "It was…informative. Interesting. Minutely."

He winced when Rome broke into a smile that would put Sól to shame. Germania's not-guilt melted away like butter, quickly replaced by far more sensible things. Like overwhelming irritation.

"Alright," Rome said amiably, clapping Germania on the shoulder. "We'll get our horses back and go. But first you gotta help me finish up this mission."

Germania frowned. Mission?

"There's a Serican embassy here," Rome explained, eyes lighting up like a firefly's rear end. "And word on the grapevine is that their country's come along with them. Serica himself! I _knew_ I didn't dream up that silk man! Oh, but he's somewhere in the palace with Parthia. Can you imagine? Serica, alone with the crazy guy who knocked me out in the first place? We have to get him out of there. Who knows what Parthia's doing with that gentle Seres?"

Germania's frown deepened. That was a disturbingly false recollection of actual events. China must have hit Rome harder than he'd thought.

"So I've been talking with the Seres," Rome continued, "and they let me borrow a hat and silks, you know, to wear—they'll give back our horses once I give back the clothes, don't worry—so now, all I have to do is sneak into the palace, and bam! I'll meet Serica, we'll have an all-out showdown, and then we can take him back to live with us in the Mediterranean, and he'll teach us the secrets of his people, and we'll all live happily ever after. What do you think?"

If Germania frowned any harder he was certain his lips would droop over his chin. He wasn't sure if he could even speak at this point; such was the power of his bewilderment.

"Eghr—" he finally managed.

"Great!" Rome bellowed, not waiting for Germania to finish. "To the palace!"

And thus an unhappy Germania was dragged along on yet another one of Rome's harebrained schemes.

—:—

Parthia listened silently as China presented his case. Almost too silently. Only his sharp, calculating eyes and an intermittent stream of nodding gave any indication that the Iranian nation was still conscious.

"So," said China, clamping down on the anxiety that threatened to spill over into his voice, "what is your answer?"

Parthia closed his eyes in thought. A few moments passed without comment from either party. China inspected Parthia's face for signs of life. Was the man even breathing?

Just as China was about to repeat his question, dark eyes opened. Parthia smiled. China held his tongue and waited.

"No," said Parthia.

—:—

Here, five rights and two lefts around the palance entrance: a sprawling hall, striped with the shadows of pillars—marvelous, austere pillars that curled at the top in a very familiar way. (Greece was simply everywhere, wasn't she?) Unlike the bustle of the market square, this area was quiet. Soft with the echo of muted footsteps and distant voices.

With the genius of Rome's Serican disguise, they'd managed to get quite far without resistance. A pity it ended now.

"Name and purpose," said the guard.

"I'm the Ro—_ow_."

"His name is Idiot," Germania said, chewing the word "Idiot" into some weird Germanic language the guard couldn't possibly hope to recognize.

"And Mr. Idiot's business?"

"I'm with the Seres," Rome said, rolling up his Serican sleeves to survey the damage. A magnificent bruise of dubious color had begun to emerge. Germania was merciless.

"And you?"

This the guard addressed toward Germania. Both nations paused. Neither had paid much attention to Germania's supposed role in this scheme—or at least, Rome hadn't. Germania didn't seem to care either way, so Rome decided to seize the reins.

"Don't mind him," Rome said, casually rolling his sleeves back down and brushing them off. "He's just a…um, a servant. You know. Plebeian. Inconsequential."

To his left, Germania shot him a purely scandalized look, as if Rome had announced that he'd murdered Germania's mother and danced naked in her ashes.

"Inconsequential," the guard repeated, watching as Germania reached for the scabbard strapped to his side.

"He's like my bodyguard," Rome added.

"Your bodyguard," the guard repeated, watching as Germania attempted to cleave Rome in two.

"Yes," Rome said. Complicated footwork ensued as he tried to preserve his life. "So, ah, are you going to let us pass?"

The guard kicked them out.

—:—

"No."

Parthia's face was the picture of tranquility. China tried to imagine that face in a compatible setting. A breezy meadow, overlooked by lazily circling kites, set to a glowing sunset backdrop. Laughing children and singing phoenixes optional.

"If you could please reconsider," he began.

"No," Parthia said again. Quiet, glassy pond dressed in lilypads. Swaying reeds. Baby tadpoles.

"It would be a mutual relationship," he tried. "Mutually beneficial."

"But not equally mutual," Parthia countered. "It's too far, China. Why would I be worried about Xiongnu? I've never even met the man."

Sleeping kittens. Peony gardens. Rainbows.

"You don't have to _meet_ the pig to be affected by his piggish actions." Red alert. Calm down, China. Deep breaths. Rainbows. "For example," he added in a calmer, teacher's voice, "Yuezhi and I have both suffered first-hand, when he set his dirty paws on the Hexi Corridor—"

"Pardon me," Parthia said, head tilted, "but you mention this…this Yueh-ch?"

"Yuezhi."

"Yes, that. You are familiar with her?"

_Her_. China's attention honed in on the word. He had never mentioned Yuezhi's gender, which meant that Parthia _knew_ of Yuezhi, or at least knew enough to guess. Which was…unsurprising, actually. Yuezhi was a weirdo, no doubt, but she was also friendly and knew a lot of people. Perhaps China could turn this to his advantage.

"I am," he said vaguely, studying Parthia's face with unblinking intensity. This would have to be handled with a sensitive touch.

"You are friends?"

China considered this. The last they'd met, he had called Yuezhi a "cowardly barbarian." She, in return, had called him a "festering piece of toenail fungus."

"We're good friends," he said.

Parthia smiled. "That's unfortunate." Before China could figure out what _that_ meant, Parthia had gone and procured a small, rectangular case from somewhere in the folds of his tunic. "Still, I'd like you to give this to her," he said, and then gestured toward his collarbone. "Make sure it goes somewhere around here."

A necklace? China brightened. So they _were_ friends. (Or something else. Not that it was any of his business.) Good. Very good. He could still salvage this negotiation.

"Of course," China said, accepting the small box. "You know, Yuezhi has been having trouble with Xiongnu as well; perhaps if she had help from a third party…" He trailed off meaningfully.

"Mm." Parthia's expression: rainbows again. Unfathomable rainbows.

China hesitated, then tried for a different approach. "So have you two known each other for very long?"

"I'm well-acquainted with _Tókharoi_," Parthia said serenely.

"Quite a nice person, yes? Friendly. Good, uh, friend."

"She killed my previous king." It was amazing, how quickly Parthia's expression could go from "rainbows" to "deathstorm."

"…You know, in China, the word 'friend' is synonymous with 'terrible beast with whom I never associate.' It just occurred to me that the term might be different here. A cultural thing. I wouldn't want you getting the wrong idea."

He watched, waiting, on edge—and finally, finally, "deathstorm" eased into "amusement," and China let out a slow exhale. It wasn't quite rainbows, but he'd take what he could get.

Across the table, Parthia leaned forward, hands splayed upon yellow tablecloth as he pushed himself up. "I still won't agree to the military alliance," he said, rising from his chair, "but there are other ways we can secure good relations. If you would wait for a while? I will be back shortly with my proposal."

He exited the yellow hall, leaving China with nothing but thoughts of rainbows to keep him company. The small black box, Yuezhi's supposed present, was still clutched in China's hand. Fingers played with the lid, hesitant, wondering. Curiosity beckoned. He peeked inside.

What met his eyes was not a necklace, but a knife.

He immediately clicked the box shut.

—:—

Here, nestled away from the public eye: a hidden garden, dark willowy green, dotted with rosebuds and tulips. Hugging the side of the flowerbeds was a palace façade that stretched toward the sky, yawning forth the occasional window; along the outer edge of the garden, a stark wall circled high-maintenance blossoms with the same stifling certainty of an overprotective father.

Rome smiled upwards. A passing ground-jay chattered out a needlessly complicated tune.

Germania glowered downwards. The rosebuds in his immediate line of sight spontaneously withered.

Heedless to the floral destruction taking place behind him, Rome spread his hands. "Oh, my friend. We've faced many obstacles to get to this moment."

They'd only really faced that one guard.

"But our journey has proved that nothing can stand in the way of our friendship!"

Germania had only stopped trying to kill Rome five minutes ago.

"Now it has come to this. Here, we enact our daring rescue. Here, we finally free the damsel in distress from that wicked Parthian beast."

Germania wondered how China would react to being called a damsel in distress. Probably blast Rome off the face of the Earth. Also, he was pretty sure this "daring rescue" counted as stalking. And kidnapping.

"Here," Rome concluded, oblivious to Germania's sour thoughts, "we ascend. Germania, the grappling hook."

With a noncommittal grunt, he handed Rome the object, unsure of what to make of it. He'd certainly never seen anything like it before. Apparently it was a Roman invention.

He ducked when Rome started furiously swinging the object in wide, horizontal circles, pummeling the unfortunate passing ground-jay and nearly taking Germania's head off in the process.

_What the Hel—?_

Rome released the grappling hook, and wicked claws flew skyward, coming to a crunching halt at the base of a palace window.

Germania stared.

"Onward," Rome said, the rope of the grappling hook clasped in his hands. He began scaling the wall.

"You're insane," Germania said.

The grounded ground-jay gave a weak chirp of agreement.

—:—

"—as well as the entire route from _here_ to _here_. Decent infrastructure preferable, but ultimately not required. What say you?"

Instead of answering, China took a few moments to examine Parthia's map—a series of ink lines inscribed upon a large, thin slab of stone. Strangely, most of the books here seemed to be inscribed upon large, thin slabs of stone. It was nothing like the flexible bamboo slips and silk banners from home. China found himself slightly unnerved; these western books looked heavy enough to deal some serious damage should a person so wish it. Books shouldn't be able to double as murder weapons. It just wasn't right.

He was struck with the sudden absurd image of the Parthian Empire, racing into a warzone, swinging his map at invading opponents. Armies, annihilated by an atlas. Kingdoms, conquered by a cartographer.

"China?"

With some difficulty, he shook away his thoughts. The discovery of the knife had thrown him into an odd, morbid mood.

"I, er—" He paused, trying to remember what Parthia had been talking about. "Oh. Um. Right. Your terms are acceptable."

Parthia nodded, pleased. "Then it's settled. China and Parthia are officially partners in trade."

"Yes," China agreed without much enthusiasm. It wasn't so much that he needed the partnership as it was that he refused to have traveled tens of thousands of _li_ for nothing.

_This_ was certainly better than nothing. Still, a military alliance would have been nice, and China's mind began to wander as he and Parthia put their finishing touches on the trade agreement. There were other countries, right? His Silk Road pioneer, Zhang Qian, had returned with tales of many strange nations. To the north, Yancai and Lixuan. To the west, Tiaozhi and Daqin…

Daqin.

China looked at Parthia, who was busy gathering up maps and documents. He seemed to be humming a low, brooding melody, which, juxtaposed with the wide smile on his face, produced a decidedly creepy effect.

Oh, what the heck. It couldn't hurt to ask.

He leaned forward in his chair. "Hey, this might sound a bit strange but…I don't suppose you've heard of a 'Daqin'?"

The humming stopped. Parthia glanced at him curiously. "Dah-cheen?"

"A country that one of my men was telling me about," China explained, excitement lending his words momentum. "West of here, past the sea—Daqin, _da qin_, the Great Qin, Kingdom of Haixi—"

Internally, he slapped himself. He had to stop romanticizing. And gushing.

"There are many countries to the west," Parthia mused while China fought to compose himself. "Some great, some…less so. If your Dah-cheen is significant enough to attract even the attention of the Seres, then it's quite possible that I have heard of it. Under a different name, of course."

China straightened, putting a heavily sleeved hand to his chin in thought. A few ponderous seconds passed as his brain navigated the linguistic hurdles in question. Somewhere in the background came a crunching noise, which he ignored.

"I believe," he said finally, "Daqin is what your people would call _Rome_."

Parthia dropped his maps. A shadow fell across his face. The entire room seemed to darken.

China wondered for a moment if he had said something grossly inappropriate when he realized that Parthia's face, along with the room, had _literally_ fallen into shadow.

As in, something was blocking the light.

Perplexed, he twisted around in his seat in an attempt to figure out why the sun had seemingly winked out of existence.

There was…

There was a man who crouched upon the windowsill.

"Hey!" said the man who crouched upon the windowsill.

China blinked.

Blinked again.

And then leapt out of his chair in alarmed recognition.

"_You_," he said from on top of the table. "Why are you here?"

Their unwelcome visitor grinned and jumped into the room, revealing an evil-looking, taloned device that clung to the base of the window. China stared at the abomination in horror. This man was clearly on a crusade for vengeance. There was no other explanation.

"Well, I've come to—"

"_Sky_. I'm sorry! I'm sorry, alright? Back then, I didn't mean to—there's no need to hold a grudge—_don't come any closer_."

Forgetting that he was on the table, China backtracked a bit farther than advisable and tumbled backwards off the edge.

"Hey, are you okay? And don't worry, I've come to resc—"

He was cut off when China, in his panic, aimed a kick at the table's bottom edge. The entire piece of furniture tipped over, forcing the intruder to scurry back. China took advantage of the time afforded by his makeshift shield to grab the first weapon that came to mind.

"Back off," he cried, waving a shard of Parthia's broken map. "I have a stupidly heavy western book, and I'm not afraid to use it!"

His threat had the opposite intended effect. Instead of cowering in fear, the man seemed to perk up.

"Oh," he said, "are we sparring now?"

And then the lunatic went and lifted_ the entire sky-damned table_.

Heart sinking to his toes, China quickly scanned the room for backup. This psychopath was clearly stronger than what should have been allowable by reason, but perhaps if China and Parthia worked together, they could—

Parthia was nowhere to be seen.

Well, damn. It looked like China was on his own.

—:—

Here, beneath the chaotic duel going on upstairs, one might observe a bizarre union of plant, man, and animal.

In the center of the garden stood a bed of tulips. In the bed of tulips stood Germania. On Germania's head stood a ruffled ground-jay. The overall effect was that of an extremely weird, extremely misshapen pyramid.

Together they stared at the grappling hook from where it dangled, metal claw unmoving, rope tail swaying in the wind. From the interior of the building came many noises of disquieting nature, including but not limited to: shattering pottery, heavy thrashing, high-pitched screams, creative profanity, and maniacal laughter.

On his head, the ground-jay emitted a brief whistle.

"Absolutely not," Germania replied. "I'm not suicidal."

Another short, lilting tune.

"It isn't my fault Rome is a neanderthal." At his feet, the tulip heads bobbed their cheerful endorsement. Agreeable things, they were.

The bird trilled again.

"No. I'm staying right here." In order to further emphasize his point, he sat down in the tulips.

Because the Universe often enjoyed proving Germania wrong, a triangular scrap of what used to be a vase came soaring from the window at that very instant. Alarmed at the sudden movement, the ground-jay evacuated Germania's head—and not a moment too soon. The razor-edged projectile buried itself into the ground just a few feet from Germania's seated position, and Germania suddenly found himself sporting a crooked, impromptu haircut.

As he stared at the shard of pottery (an ugly thing with stupid-looking curlicues), something within him snapped.

He stood up.

He marched his way over to the line of rope.

He began to climb.

—:—

Rome had gone into a state of unmitigated bliss.

The moment he'd reached the window, he'd been greeted with the wonderful sight of Parthia's face, caught in an uncertain twist between surprise and outrage. Immediately after, Parthia had beat a hasty retreat. Thus Rome had won a glorious victory, and he didn't even have to do all that much.

Following his triumph, he proceeded to acquaint himself with Serica, who—despite possessing a rather nervous, squirrelly disposition—actually turned out to be quite the decent fighter. More than decent. To be honest, Rome hadn't felt this excited since Carthage.

"You're very strong," Rome told Serica delightedly. "I haven't battled like this in ages!"

Serica responded with a high, sweeping kick to the face.

Rome laughed and dodged the fist that followed soon after. Serica had initially seemed fond of using domestic fixtures such as chairs and vases as improvised weapons, but ever since Rome demolished the table, the room's supply of viable furniture had dwindled rapidly. From thereon the fighting was quick to dissolve into hand-to-hand combat.

As Serica spun out of the way to avoid Rome's forward charge, something small and black slipped out from his voluminous red robes. Rome skidded to a halt, curious.

"I think you dropped something," he said, pointing.

Serica's eyes flicked over to the black box and widened. For a moment he simply stood there, limbs frozen in that odd, squatting stance of his. Then, like an uncoiling snake, he pounced.

As he did so, three things happened in swift succession.

(One.)

"Stop," Serica said fiercely, withdrawing something sharp and silver from the box's contents. "I have a knife!"

(Two.)

By the window, the grappling hook wobbled and a growling Germania emerged into view, his expression promising all manner of interesting and painful deaths.

(Three.)

The Parthian Empire burst through the entrance at the front of the hall. In one hand he held a bow. In the other, a palmful of arrows.

"Wow," said Rome.

"Knife!" said Serica.

"_You_," said Germania.

"Die," said Parthia.

—:—

"I'm sorry," China said for the fifth time. "Really, I am."

Germania shrugged in response. Ever since China had returned to consciousness, he'd been apologizing nonstop. It was starting to get annoying.

"I'm not usually this violent," China continued, rubbing gingerly at his bandages. "It's just all this 'Martial Emperor' business. I'm always on edge these days."

Parthia gave a dry laugh. "It's quite alright," he said without much inflection. "Believe me, I understand. Kings come and go. It happens."

China smiled ruefully. "And I thought that your companion"—here he looked at Germania—"was going to kill me. I'm sorry. I overreacted, you know?" He sighed. "Where is he, by the way? I ought to apologize to him, too."

"Getting horses," Germania said flatly. The wound at his temple itched, and his fingers prickled with the urge to scratch. His gaze wandered around the healing tent in an attempt to distract himself. China leaned next to him, his bandages more visible than either skin or clothing. Across from them sat Parthia, who primly examined his own injuries in silence.

"Ah," said China. "You two are leaving as well?"

"Yes. West."

"West." He was studying Germania with open curiosity now. "I understand that this is a bit of an odd thing to ask, but…have you ever heard of a country named 'Daqin'?"

Parthia stilled.

Germania glanced at Parthia, frowning. "I don't think so."

"I see. Well, it was just something I wanted to ask before I returned home." China paused, frowning. "Oh, that's right. Daqin would be called 'Rome' in this region, I believe."

Rome.

Really?

…_Really?_

For a long time nobody spoke. China simply gazed unseeingly at the walls of the tent while Germania and Parthia did their best to imitate statues.

At last, China sighed and rose unsteadily to his feet. He thanked Parthia for his hospitality, bade them farewell, and babbled one last apology before hobbling out the tent.

Germania stared at the open flap of tent where China had exited.

"_Rome?"_ he asked Parthia in disbelief.

Parthia snorted.

"That," he said, "was precisely my thought."

—:—

The knucklebones landed in a subdued clatter.

Greece leaned over to inspect them. A slow smile spread across her face. Reaching over, she moved her pawn toward Egypt's undefended one.

"Attack," she drawled.

Egypt exhaled in displeasure but nonetheless moved her pawn backwards. Wasting no time, Greece deftly swapped it with her own.

A terse knock on the front door interrupted their game of senet. Greece eyed the board mournfully before getting up to answer the door. What inconvenient timing. She'd been so close to winning, too.

Greece opened the door to reveal a very bedraggled man, who seemed to be shouldering some sort of…lump.

"Hello," the bedraggled man said.

She squinted at him in thought. Wasn't this Rome's latest victim? The poor soul he'd dragged along on that 'tour of the Roman Republic' nonsense? Why did he look so beat-up? …And didn't he used to have longer hair?

"I think this is yours," said the poor soul, depositing the lump on the floor. "Goodbye." He mounted his horse (a speckled, stony-faced thing) and left just as suddenly as he came.

Greece frowned at the lump on her doorstep. Upon closer inspection, the thing appeared to be alive.

"Hi, Greece," the lump greeted her in Latin. Greece suddenly felt very tired. Of course, _of course_.

"Oh, Rome," she sighed. "Not again."

"Parthia is a jerk," Rome said cheerfully. "He wouldn't treat me."

"Why are you injured in the first place?"

Cheerful silence. Which, knowing Rome, meant it was probably his fault anyway.

"What am I going to do with you," she murmured to herself.

"Oh, I can think of _quite_ a few things…"

She ignored his lewd chuckles in favor of hauling him inside, where Egypt lounged in the open-roofed courtyard.

At the sight of Egypt, Rome's expression brightened.

At the sight of Rome, Egypt's expression soured.

Rome opened his mouth, possibly to launch into a litany of amorous exaltations, or declarations of endless devotion, or inane recitations of romantic poetry. Whatever it was he intended, they would never know; Greece silenced him with a preemptive Look, before proceeding to ferry Rome into the guest room for proper medical care.

The sun was hanging low in the sky by the time she returned to the courtyard. Egypt glanced up from a scroll of papyrus and gave Greece a brief nod of greeting.

"I don't know why I bother sometimes," Greece said as she settled back down next to their unfinished senet game. She yawned and stretched. "He always ends up getting hurt again later. I've half a mind to just throw him out."

Egypt quirked an eyebrow at her.

Greece slumped.

"Yes, I know," she sighed. "Hippocratic Oath. Anyway, he's sleeping now, but—" Abruptly, Greece stopped. Her normally languid expression sharpened. "Egypt. Our senet pieces. They aren't in the same places as before."

For the first time that day, Egypt smiled. She didn't speak, but she didn't have to. Her eyes alone spoke volumes.

_Never turn your back on a battlefield_, they admonished._ Your move, Greece._

—:—

"Hey, hey, _hey_," came a horribly familiar drawl.

China stiffened. Oh, sky. The long journey home had sapped his energy, and he _really_ wasn't in the mood for this. Maybe if he ignored her hard enough, she'd go away. Like a bad dream.

No such luck; all he received for his efforts was an upside-down headful of ugly red hair in his face. He choked and swore. Her hair tasted like _cat vomit_ and he was sure she'd just given him a _black eye_—

"China, you old man, are you deaf?" said Yuezhi. She laughed at his irritated glare and retracted her head, swinging back upright on the tree branch she'd been hanging from.

"Go away," China snapped, thinking grimly of Parthia and the black box. "I have nothing to say to you."

"Sure you don't." Yuezhi was in annoyingly high spirits. "Actions speak louder than words, hm?"

She performed a weird, flopping somersault off the branch. China willed her to land on her face. She landed on her feet, much to his disappointment.

"Well," she said, drawing out a small cloth bag, "not that I'm _not_ grateful you kicked out Pig Butt from my old house, but I think I'm gonna stay in Bactria. So, thanks, yeah? But no thanks."

"What?"

"Nothing personal, y'hear? I just like Bactria better, is all. Nicer weather, nicer neighbors. No offense. But I appreciate the thought, even if you're a jackass half the time."

China huffed in impatience. "Yuezhi, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Aw, your denial is so cute. Here."

She tossed the bag at his face. He managed to catch it in time, but had to bite down on another bout of swearing. What was with Yuezhi and her constant attempts to break his nose?

"For old time's sake. Actually," she said as an afterthought, "you never got that from me." Her face became positively gleeful. "Yup. I was never here today. Me, random acts of kindness? What are you talking about? Absurd!"

China stared. Why didn't this woman ever make any blasted _sense?_

"Enjoy that hunk of junk that I never gave you!" With a lopsided smile and copious amounts of winking, she finally departed.

"What," China said to nobody in particular.

He undid the string and looked inside the bag.

Frosty pieces of jade glinted back at him.

"…What," he said again.

—:—

"What do you mean, 'we won the war while you were gone'?" China said, aghast.

"I don't understand why you aren't happier about this," Tianming said.

"Of course I'm unhappy! I traveled tens of thousands of _li_ for nothing! And now you're telling me you beat up Xiongnu and _I wasn't there to see it?"_

Tianming made an awkward wriggling gesture (the draconic equivalent of a shrug). "Look on the bright side," the dragon said. "Yuezhi isn't mad at you anymore, and your trip was hardly worth _nothing_. Were you not telling me about opening trade with Parthia?"

"Well, I suppose, but…"

"Exactly," Tianming said decisively. "You know, China, I think that investing in the Silk Road is exactly what this country needs. You've done a fine job."

"…Thanks?"

"But now that we've opened relations, it's only natural that we find an ambassador, correct? Someone who has experience in dealing with the perils of the route. Someone who has, perhaps, already made the trip before. Someone who can represent the Middle Kingdom in a vital and fundamental way. China, do you know of anyone who fits this description?"

He received no answer. China was already long gone.

Tianming allowed himself a brief period of silence before collapsing into chuckles. China was really much too fun to tease.

"Well," he said, grinning, "maybe next time."

* * *

—:—

* * *

**Footnotes****:**

**1] Timeline**: Still roughly 120 BC. Most of the Greek peninsula is under Roman rule, Egypt is in the middle of the Ptolemaic dynasty, and China finally manages to drive Xiongnu out of the Hexi Corridor. (Which was a major victory, but not quite the end of the war. Tianming was just being a troll.)

**2] Dayuan**: Ancient nation in Ferghana Valley (Central Asia). Home of the horses that sweat blood. China fell in love with these blood-sweating horses, began calling them "Heavenly Horses," and generally became very obsessed with them. The people of Dayuan, however, didn't want to give up their horses. When a Chinese envoy came knocking on their door with offers of gold, Dayuan flipped out—they smashed up the gold, murdered the Chinese ambassadors, and pissed off Emperor Wu. Thus the two nations went to war. Over horses. (China won.)

**3] Serica, Seres**: What the Greeks and Romans called China. The _Seres_ were inhabitants of _Serica,_ which means "land of silk." From historical accounts it seems that the Seres were thought to be a very peaceful, prudent and polite group of people. Serica was basically a land of Disney Princesses.

**4] Tókharoi**: The Greek word for Tocharians. Sources describe Tocharians as striking in appearance, with red hair and blue eyes. China knew them as the Yuezhi.

**5] Yuezhi vs. Parthia**: In 124 BC, Artabanus II of Parthia was allegedly killed while battling the Yuezhi—although some historians think that it was actually the Saka (a Scythian tribe), not the Yuezhi, who killed the king.

**6] Xiongnu vs. Parthia**: Sort of. What happened was essentially a domino effect. Xiongnu kicked Yuezhi out of the Hexi Corridor. Yuezhi, now homeless, charged into Bactria and kicked out the Saka. Saka, now homeless, migrated west and ended up invading Parthia.

**7] Carthage**: Major power in the Mediterranean and, for a time, Rome's main rival. Then the Third Punic War happened.

**8] Martial Emperor**: Emperor Wu of Han China. (Wu literally means "martial.") His reign was an aggressive period for China, with lots of military conquests and territorial expansion. He's remembered today as one of the greatest emperors in Chinese history. Interestingly, at the same time Wu ruled China, Mithridates II ruled Parthia. Like Wu, Mithridates II was fiercely expansionist, and is recognized today as one of Parthia's greatest kings.

**9] Senet**: Ancient Egyptian board game. _Senet_ means _passing_. No one knows exactly what the original rules were, but a variation of senet is still played today.

**10] Jade**: Yuezhi had a long history of trading with agricultural China, particularly in jade.


	3. Rome III: Interlude

**A/N****:**

Thank you, guest reviewers! Sorry for being awkwardly public about this, but I enjoy replying to people and my feeble mind sees no alternative method.

**Guest: **Ah, do I spy someone who knows of the Yuezhi/Rouzhi? Kudos to you, my friend! (Me, I had no idea before researching all of this up.) Rouzhi is indeed an alternative name for the Yuezhi, although I picked Yuezhi because it seemed slightly more mainstream. Plus, I thought Moon Clan sounded cooler than Meat Eaters.

**Jinlongbao:** Oh man, your review totally had me breaking out in squee-ful grins. Thank you so much! And in reply to your question...well, let's just say that despite my goal to keep this story relatively angst-free, there's definitely a reason for the "drama" label. (If the site would let me, I'd probably file this story under Humor/Drama/Friendship/Adventure/Tragedy. But alas, we're only allowed two genre categories.)

* * *

—:—

* * *

_Part 1_

**ROME**

How Rome and China Still Haven't Met, Which Is Really Getting Old

* * *

—:—

* * *

Midafternoon.

It was muggy. And hot. And just yuck overall.

Thank the multifarious gods for trees. Trees were sacred divinity.

Yuezhi, soon-to-be empire and ex-nomad extraordinaire, lounged in a particularly fine specimen of sacred divinity. The lower 'V' junction of the tree trunk served as a resting place for her head. The higher branches served as a resting place for her feet. She was, all in all, quite upside-down.

This was her thinking position.

As blood rushed to her head and pounded savage drumbeats against her skull, she found her mind drifting peacefully toward Deep Thoughts. Most of them revolved around food, but a sizeable number was dedicated to her old neighbor, China.

(Chicken.)

So, basically: China was acting weird.

Like, even weirder than normal. Meaning really really weird.

(Roast duck.)

First there was China's growing fixation on this one guy, Dacheen or Dah-choo or something like that. When asked about _why_ he idolized some country he'd never met, China would go on long, ranting paroxysms of starry-eyed philosophical mumbo-jumbo. Seriously, she had no flipping clue. She'd zoned out at the part about yin-yang and cosmic balance.

(Seared beef.)

Which, okay, by itself wasn't _too_ strange. Gods knew that Yuezhi had her fair share of idols (Greece was just too cool) and it wasn't uncommon for China to ramble about his precious…Confusion-ism, or whatever it was.

(Lamb chops.)

But then along came that tiny Nanyue girl, and China started going into these _moods_. He'd nearly started _crying_ at their last trading appointment, which—gods almighty—had given Yuezhi a minor heart attack. Not that she'd been concerned or worried or anything, but all that wobbly-eyed nonsense had made it really hard to do business with him.

(Pork.)

And then he just up and disappeared.

Inconsiderate jerk.

They'd had a good thing going. Trade agreements. Riches. She was almost an empire now, gearing up to bathe in money and spit grapes and snag princesses but nooo, China had to go and ruin things with his stupid asocial behavior.

Well, she'd track him down, wherever he was.

And when she found him, she was going to trade the crap out of him.

Because she wanted money, dammit.

(And meat.)

Red-faced with righteous indignation (and increased blood flow toward her cranium), Yuezhi swung herself upright and hopped off the tree. The sun beat down maddeningly upon her head, but she did not complain as she normally would have. This was no time for complaints.

Her session of Deep Thoughts had given her a Quest, and Quests were always Serious Business.

—:—

Trust China to pick a random island in the middle of the ocean as a hideaway.

Trust China to be _difficult_.

A dull, clattering crash. A yelp.

"Yuezhi, what are you _doing_ here?"

"What are _you_ doing here?" she countered, crossing her arms. Casually. As if she hadn't just rowed halfway across the sea from Saro in a subpar boat. "Aren't you supposed to be in, y'know, China? Do you have any idea how stupidly hard it was to find you?"

China gaped at her. He made no move to pick up the wooden cups and plates that littered the floor of his kitchen.

_"Chao chi_ Yuezhi," came a new voice. A small, unsmiling face poked out from behind a rice-paper door.

Yuezhi blinked. "Oh, hey. You're here, too, Nanyue?"

"Nam Viet," the tiny girl corrected. She delicately picked her way through the mess of fallen tableware and latched onto Yuezhi's tartan robes. "Yuezhi, take me back with you. I want to go home."

Yuezhi blinked again. "Huh. China, what the heck, did you kidnap her?"

China's expression instantly went from bewildered to exasperated.

"Of course not; she's my little sister! I'm a _good_ older brother, I wouldn't—" His voice cracked on the word _brother_ and he hesitated, flushing. Both girls stared at him. He sputtered and changed tactics. "Nanyue, ungrateful girl, what's gotten into you? Don't associate with the wild woman. She could be diseased."

"_Nam Viet,"_ Nanyue grumbled again, but she let go of Yuezhi all the same.

Yuezhi frowned, feeling mildly offended. She opened her mouth to talk, but paused, all of a sudden noticing the four other occupants in the room.

Four children sat staring at her from four short-legged tables. Three small boys and another small girl. All dark-haired. All brown-eyed.

"Hello," one of them said hesitantly.

"Oh my gods," Yuezhi said, horrified. "Oh my gods, China, you're _multiplying_."

China scoffed. "I'm not _multiplying_, you meathead. They're my younger siblings, do you understand?"

She squinted at him. "You're building an army. You're planning to take over the world with an army of Asian babies."

"Ye—_no_. No! Look." Sighing, he gestured vaguely at them. "This is Koguryo." The largest, a round-faced boy, waved cheerfully at them. "Baekje." Another boy, smaller and more slender, nodded in greeting. "Saro." The single girl looked over and smiled demurely. "Japan." The last child's eyes flickered briefly sideways, but he offered no further acknowledgement.

"And, ah, Viet Nam?" Yuezhi said, glancing at the ever-serious Nanyue.

Nanyue sighed. "Nam Viet," she corrected for a third time.

"Yes," China said, looking somewhat distracted. He bent over and finally began picking up his dropped tableware. "Nanyue. Koguryo, Baekje, Saro. Japan. I've been protecting and looking after them ever since—" His expression cracked for a moment, before smoothing over into a hasty smile. "I mean, it's hard taking care of kids. But it's what a good older brother would do, right?"

He straightened and beamed at the children with a fierce, desperate sort of pride. It was almost painful to watch.

"So, uh, a good older brother," Yuezhi repeated slowly. The gears in her mind turned. A suspicion began to form.

China's grip tightened on the wooden plates. "The very _best._"

Yuezhi frowned. She was silent for a while.

"China," she said at last, her voice uncharacteristically quiet. "What happened to Gojoseon?"

A hush fell over the room. Koguryo froze at his table, spoon halfway to his mouth. Baekje paled and began to tremble. Saro's smile withered into nonexistence. Nanyue and Japan averted their eyes. And China…

China turned to her with a smile of porcelain, smoothly curving and molded perfectly in all the wrong ways. It was a brittle, alien thing, something that looked like it'd shatter if she happened to push too hard.

"Please leave," he said.

"China—"

"Please. Leave."

Yuezhi looked back and forth between China's rigid expression and the five solemn-faced children. She hesitated, then made up her mind.

"Okay," she said.

—:—

Swish. Swish.

"Yuezhi."

"Uh-huh?"

Swish. Swish.

"What are you doing."

She shrugged. "Leaving. Like you told me to."

"I can see that," China said. "What I don't understand is, _why in the name of the Jade Emperor am I leaving with you?"_

"Because the Jade Emperor is overrated. Jade, too. You know, China, I never got why you were so obsessed with useless green rocks. Not that I'm complaining, of course."

China made the sound of an enraged ox and threw up his hands in frustration. "Don't change the subject! You kidnapped me in my sleep. _Kidnapped!_ There are—there are _no words_ for how _insanely inappropriate_ that is, do you even _realize!"_

"Kidnap is such an ugly word," Yuezhi said, conveniently forgetting that she'd used the word herself a few hours previous. "I prefer the term, _spirited away_."

He glared. "_And_ you left five children to fend for themselves. Alone. In Japan."

"Aw, come on. They're countries, they can take care of themselves. 'Sides, I didn't leave _five…_"

"Just what exactly is that supposed to m—" China froze. What he'd originally thought to be a bundle of discarded clothing had suddenly morphed into a small child.

"_Chao anh_ China," said the small child.

China stared at Nanyue. He leapt to his feet. "_You kidnapped my little sister_—"

"Hey, she wanted to come," Yuezhi said defensively.

"I will kill you," China said, pacing up and down the deck of the ragged boat. "Just wait until we get to shore. I will _kill_ you."

Yuezhi grinned. "Uh, sure. You can try, donkey-face." She paused in her steady paddling to throw an oar at his face. "But make yourself useful and help me row in the meantime, would ya?"

—:—

After much back-and-forth arguing, they dropped Nanyue off at her home in southern China.

("Nanyue, why didn't you tell me you were homesick?" said China. "I would have brought you back weeks ago!")

("She _did_ tell you, you moron," said Yuezhi.)

With that done, they fought a bit more, mostly about what to do next. China wanted to go back to Japan, but Yuezhi was having none of that. No way was she going to let him wallow his way back to the Island of Angst. He needed fresh air. Fresh sights.

So they argued.

They argued all the way to Bactria. Much wheedling and complaining commenced on Yuezhi's side to get China to stay. She introduced him to cucumbers and spent an afternoon browsing camels.

They argued all the way to Parthia. China declared his disgust of Bactrian camels and disappeared into the Parthian palace, where he proceeded to work some sort of VIP magic to procure a more well-equipped caravan. Yuezhi tried not to look too impressed.

They argued all the way across Arabia.

Past the Erythraean Sea.

To the Nile Delta.

…Basically, there was a lot of arguing.

Yuezhi didn't mind so much, in the end. She'd take an angry China over a weepy China any day. An angry China was a normal China. An angry China, she could deal with.

Besides, if China _truly_ hadn't wanted to come, he probably wouldn't have let her drag him around in the first place. Grumbling protests aside, he was being surprisingly agreeable.

(Once or twice, she caught him glancing her way with something resembling relief.)

(Every time, she pretended not to notice.)

—:—

Two nations sat picnicking on the the green-speckled bank of the Euphrates River. Nothing but sun and water and a gorgeous view all around. Oh, and two massive armies. But that was normal, really. For picnics. Truly.

"How's the wine?"

Parthia took a delicate sip. "Passable," said his mouth. _Disgusting_, said his face.

Rome gave Parthia a cheerfully insincere smile. "Have some more, then," he said, ladling more wine into Parthia's drinking cup.

"Actually, I'd very much prefer if you—"

"Oh, right!" Rome cut in loudly. He shifted the ladle to his left hand and reached for a water vessel. "Sorry, I forgot about your _weak Parthian constitution_. How thoughtless of me! Allow me to _water it down_ for you."

He began pouring water into the drinking cup with somewhat more violence than necessary.

Parthia's eye twitched as he watched. "That," he said, "is quite enough, _thank you_." And then, when Rome showed no signs of stopping: "Are you deaf?"

"This is really good wine," Rome said in a vaguely threatening tone. He continued to pour. The cup was overflowing. Parthia's clothes were getting wet.

In an abrupt movement, Parthia reached out and tore the cup out of Rome's reach, splashing them both with diluted wine.

Rome masterfully turned his surprised squeak into a deep-throated cough, and leapt to self-defense. With a ladle.

Taking the ladle-waving as a sign of aggression, Parthia snatched up a carving knife.

Taking _that_ as a sign of aggression, Rome dropped his water vessel and hid behind a large serving tray as a shield.

On the western bank, legions of Roman soldiers drew their weapons. On the eastern bank, multitudes of Parthian archers nocked their arrows. Rome and Parthia glared and brandished cutlery at each other, all pretense of civility forgotten.

Across from them, their bosses exchanged looks of exasperation.

"Rome," Octavian said, his visage set in a tranquil embodiment of _make-picnics-not-war_. "Remember that we are here for peace, not violence. Men, stand down." Rome's boss made a sweeping "down" gesture with his arm, and Parthia's boss likewise signaled for his archers to lower their weapons. Both armies grudgingly complied.

"That goes for the two of you as well," said Phraates IV, reaching over and pointedly tapping his spoon against Parthia's drinking cup.

Parthia lowered the carving knife but did not relax. "Apologies, my king," he said in a clipped voice. "I'm afraid I've grown to expect bloodshed whenever dealing with _him_." He eyed Rome distastefully. "His poor military skills notwithstanding."

Octavian blinked at the barb, the tiniest of frowns crossing his face. Rome put down his ladle and gave a rather unfriendly laugh.

"Poor military skills?" Rome said, crossing his arms. "Really, now? This coming from someone who can only fight effectively while running away?"

Parthia narrowed his eyes. "If it is Carrhae you are referring to, I invite you to recall the actual victors of that battle. A hint for your diminutive mind: _they weren't Roman._"

Rome's smile never dropped, but his jawline did tense. "You know, speaking of Carrhae, and seeing as we're supposed to be at _peace_ and all—" His grin widened. "My boss would really like his eagles back."

Parthia's returning smile burned like poison. "Mine would like his _son_ back."

Their face-off was interrupted by an angry rattling of utensils against tableware. Both turned to see the Parthian king looking none too pleased.

"Enough," Phraates said lowly. "Bickering like children, the two of you. Would it be so difficult to set aside your differences, if not for my peace of mind, then for the sake of your people?"

Rome and Parthia glanced at one another. They simultaneously frowned and looked away.

Octavian absently fingered his tableware. "We can't afford to keep fighting; both of our countries are still recovering from civil war. Perhaps if…" He paused and regarded them thoughtfully, eyes lighting up. "Perhaps if the countries had some time to get to know one other?"

Both countries stared at Octavian as if he'd suggested an act of utter depravity.

Phraates lifted an eyebrow. "Just what are you proposing?"

"That depends on your agenda," Octavian said. His serene smile returned. "Tell me, would you happen to have any business in Egypt this time of year?"

—:—

Phraates IV had absolutely no business in Egypt. But that didn't stop him from abandoning Parthia to the senseless mercy of Rome and Octavian's completely unnecessary Egyptian expedition.

Sending dark looks toward the back of Rome's head, Parthia wondered if perhaps he should have been more supportive of Tiridates when he had the chance. Then again, breaking out into civil war every time one of his bosses annoyed him was probably not the most sustainable of strategies.

He watched as Octavian trundled over to Rome via camel, leaning over to murmur something in Rome's ear. Octavian kept shooting meaningful glances at Parthia, unmindful of Rome's tensing shoulders. It was laughably easy to read the situation. _Go on_, Octavian's expression beseeched. _Why don't you talk to that nice boy over there? Play nice, make friends, and be back home in time for supper._

How utterly _patronizing_. Parthia's hands tightened on knobbly rope reins. He attempted to suppress a snarl. (Which might not have been overly successful, given Rome's guarded demeanor as he slowed down his camel to match the pace of Parthia's.)

"So," Rome said unhappily. "My…my boss wants me to talk to you."

"I've noticed."

"Ah."

Sullen silence. Up ahead, Octavian turned over his shoulder and waved at them. Rome waved halfheartedly back.

"Such a cruel man," Rome lamented. "Why would he do this to me? I don't want to talk to you."

Parthia didn't bother to comment. Perhaps if he concentrated hard enough, his contempt would filter out from his body into a miasma of absolute disdain. That ought to communicate his thoughts well enough. If Parthia was particularly fortunate, Rome might even choke on said miasma and die.

Octavian was now making convoluted gesticulations.

Rome tugged on Parthia's sleeve. "Quick, say something."

Parthia reflexively yanked his arm away. The miasma of absolute disdain intensified.

"We need to look like we're having a conversation," Rome insisted. "Say something."

"Troglodyte," Parthia offered.

"Something civil!"

"…How do you do, troglodyte?"

Rome leaned back in frustration, inadvertently jerking his camel's reins a bit harder than advisable. Irritated at the gesture, Rome's camel shook its neck and started kicking.

Not long afterward, Parthia was treated to the pleasing sight of Rome getting bucked off his camel. His mood instantly lifted. When it came to Rome, Parthia found that his humor always veered heavily toward slapstick.

Perhaps this journey would not be quite as unbearable as he'd initially imagined.

—:—

They'd made it to the gates of Alexandria when they came upon an unforeseen obstacle.

"You've got some nerve."

Greece's voice was clear, flat, _frigid-_cold. Like the high crown of the Alps. During a blizzard. On the night of the winter solstice. It was, to be frank, the kind of sheer frostiness that had no business in sun-baked Egypt.

"Hello, Greece," Rome chirped nervously, dismounting his camel. Greece was usually slower to anger than a concussed tortoise. When was the last time she had been angry, truly angry? Oh, she'd been known for giving Persia the stink-eye once or twice, and of course there was all that messy business with her brother, but _him_, Rome? He couldn't recall a time when Greece had been quite so unfriendly—or, at least, not since Corinth, and that was well over a century ago…

"So," Greece said, "why have you come back to Alexandria? Come to burn down another library?"

Rome winced. "I'm so sorry, darling Greece, I didn't mean to burn it down! It just, it just…happened…"

"Just…_happened_."

"The harbor wasn't supposed to catch on fire," he insisted, "just the boats." He paused, thinking. "And in my defense, it was my boss' idea, and it sounded like a good idea at the time—"

She exhaled heavily. "Rome, just tell me what you're doing here."

"Rome's leader wishes to visit a dead man," Parthia said, rising out from absolutely nowhere like a creature of the Underworld.

Rome whipped his head around in surprise, accidentally bumping noses with his camel (who made an unhappy gurgling noise and attempted to eat Rome's hair).

Greece looked from Rome to the Parthia. She tilted her head slowly, curiosity eclipsing irritation.

"The two of you aren't trying to kill each other," she observed. "This is new."

"Indeed. And detestably so."

Greece shrugged. "What were you saying about a dead man?"

"Alexander," Rome broke in, his head dipping in semicircles as he fled from unwelcome ribbons of saliva. "Octavian wants to—to Alexander of Macedon, to pay—_damn it_—sorry, to pay respects—"

He broke off to wrestle with his camel.

"The Roman leader came to see the Alexander's tomb," Parthia clarified, "and I, due to unfortunate circumstances, was forced along as well. I don't suppose you'd like to accompany us? Alexander's one of yours, isn't he—Macedonian Greek?"

"I'm afraid it isn't quite that simple," Greece said wryly. "I'll pass."

"Pity. Intelligent company has been scarce as of late."

From Rome's corner came an absentminded, "Hey." He'd gotten the animal secured in a neck-lock, although it in turn had somehow managed to fasten its teeth on Rome's left ear.

"In any case," Parthia continued, as if Rome hadn't said anything, "would you let us through?"

Greece frowned at them for a long time. "Listen to Egypt," she finally said. "And don't let Rome near a fire."

"Duly noted," said Parthia.

She stepped aside. The gates opened.

—:—

It was, Parthia mused, somewhat difficult to listen to Egypt when the woman never actually _said_ anything.

Egypt had waited, silently, as Octavian explained their purpose. She then proceeded to lead them, silently, through Alexandria—past luxuriously paved roads, past a magnificent lighthouse that shone eye-searingly bright, past the charred remains of what used to be a library (Rome cringed at the sight).

All without saying a word. All while studiously avoiding eye-contact with Rome.

Surprisingly, Rome was equally skittish about eye-contact. Parthia found himself reluctantly intrigued. In his experience, Rome had always been an incorrigible womanizer. What exactly had happened to all the flirting, the preening? Not that Parthia was _complaining_, per se, but had the last Civil War truly been so affecting?

…Regardless, the atmosphere around the two was more than a little uncomfortable. After a few aborted efforts at small talk, Parthia distracted himself by absorbing the sights around him. It was not at all difficult; Alexandria was truly a masterpiece of a city, prosperous and thriving and _gorgeous_.

That lighthouse—what a feat of engineering! He resolved to take notes.

An elegant museum caught his eye. Oh yes, cultural centers would definitely make a city attractive. Something to keep in mind.

And there—across from the decorative statue—that was an inn, was it not? Perhaps if he invested in a few more caravansaries…yes, that could work. Accommodate his merchants, increase consumer traffic, reap further sources of revenue. Infrastructure, likewise, was always important.

Along the walkway—a line of stalls. Perfect! Alexandria was a port city, a center of trade not unlike Parthia himself. Some of these wares would resell for a hefty price back home. While Rome and Egypt awkwardly ignored one another, Parthia took his time to scan the selections.

A burly young man peddling dyes. A small redhead selling silks. A plump merchant showcasing fine jewelry—

_A small redhead selling silks._

He did a double take. Wasn't that—?

His eyes narrowed.

"_Tókharoi,_" he said.

The redhead looked up.

Her eyes widened.

"Crap," she said.

* * *

—:—

* * *

**Footnotes****:**

**1] Timeline**: Roughly 30 BC. Due to an extremely messy series of events, Rome, Parthia, and Egypt are _all_ recovering from civil wars._  
_

**2] Nanyue**: Vietnam. (Though I'm sure you've already figured it out thanks to my not-so-subtle hints.) Was taken by China in 111 BC.

**3] Gojoseon**: Ancient Korea. Fell in 108 BC after the Han-Gojoseon War. Splintered into three kingdoms.

**4] Koguryo, Baekje, Saro**: The aforementioned Three Kingdoms of Korea. Alternate spelling of Koguryo is Goguryeo; I picked the former to more clearly distinguish it from Gojoseon. Saro is better known as Silla, although the name didn't become standardized until the sixth century.

**5] Octavian**: Born Gaius Octavius. Later became known as Augustus, the first Emperor of the Roman Empire, a politically savvy badass whom I can do no justice. I apologize for my bland, historically inaccurate portrayal of him.

**6] Picnicking on the Euphrates**: Apparently, this totally happened. Only not with Octavian and Phraates. It was actually Octavian's grandson and some other Parthian prince (my source, _The Silk Road: A History_, gave no names) who sat on an island in the middle of the Euphrates River, picnicking together. The Roman army watched from one side, and the Parthian army watched from the other. Quite possibly one of the more intense picnics in history.

**7] Battle of Carrhae**: The first major confrontation between Parthia and Rome, as well as one of the most devastating defeats in Roman military history. Long story short, Rome underestimated Parthia, and Parthia kicked his ass. Parthian archers had this trick where they'd gallop away at full speed as if in retreat, and then twist around and fire arrows over their shoulders. It was quite deadly.

**8] Eagles and son**: The eagle standard was a rallying point and a symbol of pride for Romans. So when they lost their precious Legionary Eagles to the Parthians at Carrhae, they were _not_ happy campers. After slinging around a few war threats, Rome managed to recover these standards by exchanging them for the Parthian king's captured son in 20 BC.

**9] Library of Alexandria**: Known mostly for the way it was horribly destroyed by fire. Historians are unsure of the specifics and have come up with multiple theories of its demise, one of which points to the fire set by Julius Caesar during the Siege of Alexandria in 47 BC.

**10] Lighthouse of Alexandria**: One of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Situated on Pharos, a small island just off the coast of the Nile Delta. Destroyed by earthquakes many hundreds of years later.


	4. Rome IV: Stalk Block

**A/N****:**

**Jinlongbao:** No problem, I'm happy to reply! To clarify things, the war with Gojoseon in _Constellations_ is not the same one referenced in chapter three. The Gojoseon-Yan War was like 300 BC, while the Gojoseon-Han War was more around 100 BC. My weird little headcanon for China's aging process goes something like this: China grew up rapidly during the Qin Dynasty (221 – 206 BC), hit adulthood during the Western Han (206 BC – 8 AD), and then stopped aging by the end of the Han Dynasty (220 AD). So for the Gojoseon-Yan War he's twelve-ish; for the Gojoseon-Han War he's pretty much an adult. Hopefully that made sense and I didn't misunderstand your question! :)

* * *

—:—

* * *

_Part 1_

**ROME**

How Nobody Really Wanted Rome and China to Meet

* * *

—:—

* * *

"China!"

Yuezhi came barreling around the corner, her shrill voice echoing down the streets of Alexandria like a symphony of screeching cats. China, who had been browsing through a selection of curious-looking fruit, winced and covered his ears.

"What's going on?" he said, frowning. "Did you try to steal someone's wig again? You know how these Egyptians get about hair—"

She grabbed him and unceremoniously spun him around, sandwiching herself between China and a wall. There was a confusing flurry of motion, and suddenly China found himself facing the business end of an arrow-fitted recurve bow.

He wondered, for the umpteenth time, if Yuezhi was trying to get him killed.

"_Tókharoi_, what is the meaning of this?" a familiar voice inquired, lifting China from his despairing thoughts. He looked past the arrow and refocused on the person behind it.

China blinked. "Parthia? What are you doing here?"

—:—

"_Rome_ is in town?" China breathed.

"_Greece_ is in town?" Yuezhi swooned.

"Show me," they demanded simultaneously.

Parthia looked from one eager expression to the next and felt a chill run down his spine. Perhaps he shouldn't have told them. No, he _definitely_ shouldn't have told them. China's sudden appearance had taken him by surprise; he'd been caught off guard; he hadn't been _thinking_…

_Come now, Parthian Empire. Don't panic. You can still salvage this._

He plastered a smooth smile on his face and gave them the wrong directions.

—:—

Yuezhi ran-hop-skipped her way through winding footpaths and narrow lanes. She may or may not have indulged in a cartwheel or two. Passersby stared and birds fled in her overzealous wake, but she paid them no mind. It'd been _forever_ since she'd last seen Greece, really much too long, this trip had been _so _worth all the pain and fuss, it was lucrative, it was awesome, it was—

Without warning, an arm reached out and yanked her into the adjacent alleyway.

—_freaky as all heck…!_

Oh wait, look, it was just Parthia with his bow still in hand. Well, ha, he must have remembered that he'd been trying to kill her. She'd been hoping he'd forgotten. Darn it.

"Will you stop that?" he snapped, as she busied herself in attempting to elbow him in the face. "I am not here to fight."

"Doing a swell job of convincing me, there—"

"Tell me, has China ever mentioned a 'Daqin' to you?"

Now, _that_ was out of the blue. The statement was perplexing enough that she halted her assault.

"Huh? Um, yes, but what does that have to do with—"

"What has he said? And what do you know of it?"

She slowly lowered her elbow. "Not much? He rants about that guy a lot, I guess. Something or other about…cosmological balance? It's really weird. I think he sees Daqin as a counterpart, the flip side of a coin…uh, the west to his east, the yin to his yang—"

"As I thought." Parthia's mouth thinned. "China and Rome can't be allowed to meet."

"What? What does Rome have to do with anything? …And why is it that you sound like a jealous girlfriend?"

Parthia adopted an imperious _you-fool_ expression and said, "Rome _is _Daqin."

She blinked. "Oh." That…actually made a lot of sense. Sort of. "And the girlfriend part?"

A sigh. "Be _serious_. Have you even considered the ramifications? These are two large empires, and geographically, _we_ are the ones caught in the middle. Imagine if they formed an alliance. What would happen if war broke out?"

Yuezhi looked at him uncertainly. "China wouldn't—"

"China is a _country_. It is in our nature," said Parthia, and there was something about that smooth, dispassionate tone that Yuezhi very much disliked. "Think. You are an entrepreneur as well, second-rate though you may be. Consider the risks. Worst case scenario: a war on two fronts. Best case scenario: we lose our role as middlemen in a highly profitable business." He smiled blandly. "I know we've had our differences, but for the benefit of both of our futures, I am proposing a truce. Well, _Tókharoi?_ Do I have your ear?"

She frowned at his proffered hand. This entire situation felt uncomfortably like noodling around behind someone's back. But…it wasn't really _hurting_ anyone, was it? And Parthia _did_ bring up a valid argument…

Well.

Parthia had always been a realist.

"Alright," she said. They shook hands.

—:—

Bored of waiting for Parthia to come back, Rome decided to take the time to exercise his creative prowess. A few strings here, a few fasteners there, and he could see it coming together, a great vision, glorious, quintessential artistic expression—oh, he could _die _it was just so beautiful—

"What is that?" Octavian asked curiously, prodding at his invention.

"I have no idea," Rome declared.

It didn't matter.

It was art.

About half an hour later, a semicircle of bystanders had formed around the company of three. Rome emitted dramatic warbling noises and sat among a mismatched jumble of planks and strings, alongside a cheerfully swaying Octavian and a sullenly rigid Egypt. He was just ending his second song when the fourth member of their party returned.

Said fourth member slowed to a halt at the edge of the semicircle, staring. "What in the good name of Ahura Mazda—"

"Shh." Rome lifted his head from its theatrically bowed position and gave Parthia a dirty look. "Don't interrupt art," he said, before closing his eyes and resuming his feverish attack on the strings of his genius contraption.

A series of soulful twangs wobbled through the air, and he concluded the music with a low, resonant finish. The crowd clapped. Rome rose grandly to his feet and bowed.

Parthia cleared his throat. "Are you quite done wasting time?"

Rome leveled him another dirty look. "Wasting ti—? Hey, _you_ were the one who ran off without warning. You were taking too long! _I_ was making art; don't blame me for filling the world with beauty while _you_ wasted time!"

He ended the tirade with a huff and waited for Parthia's lofty sneer, for the inevitable acerbic reply.

…It never came.

Well, that was downright odd. Parthia was addicted to parting shots, in every manner of the phrase. Rome frowned and turned to examine the man a bit more closely.

Parthia wasn't even looking at him. He was fingering the edge of his belt-fastened quiver, and his eyes kept darting to and fro, like he was scanning the surroundings for secret assassins. He seemed almost…twitchy.

"Well," Octavian said blithely, snapping Rome from his thoughts. "Now that our friend the Parthian Empire has returned, let us continue on our way, yes?"

"Er…right," Rome said, still disturbed by Parthia's (relative) lack of jerkish behavior.

Octavian smiled. "Excellent. Egypt, if you'll lead the way? It wouldn't do for us to get lost, after all…"

—:—

China was lost.

He wasn't quite sure how this happened. Parthia's directions had been simple and precise. Perhaps China had made a wrong turn somewhere, or Parthia had mispoken?

As he stood on the docks of Alexandria's harbor, shielding his eyes against a scenery of stark sunlight and tumbling waves and teetering gulls, China tried to recall Parthia's exact instructions.

_…then turn left from the inn, after which you should keep going straight for another hundred paces…_

Straight.

He looked straight ahead. A yawning stretch of ocean gazed back at him.

Somehow he doubted that the mausoleum was underwater. Either Parthia was trying to drown him, or China was utterly—

"Lost?"

He turned, surprised. A woman leaned against the stone wall, one eye half-open and watching him. If she hadn't spoken, he would have assumed her to be asleep.

"A bit," he admitted. "How did you know?"

She closed her eye and shrugged languorously. "You've been pacing up and down the dock for a while now."

"Ah…" He straightened, suddenly feeling very self-conscious. "I'm sorry, I was…I suppose I don't really know what I'm doing here."

"Do any of us, really?" she sighed, sounding very distant and cosmic.

He blinked. "Uh—"

"What are you looking for?"

"The…mausoleum of…Alexander. I think."

Her eyes snapped open. She studied him with a slight frown.

"Would you happen to know where it is?" he asked, fidgeting a bit at the scrutiny.

"Yes," she said slowly. She seemed to consider something for a few moments before adding, "I can show you, if you'd like."

"Really?" he burst out, before coughing awkwardly. "I mean, thank you. Thank you very much."

"Mm." She pushed herself off the stone wall and made her way across the dock with excruciating torpidity.

"Ah, my name is China, by the way," he said, falling in line with her languid footsteps.

"Greece."

—:—

The entrance to the mausoleum was large and square. Wide stone steps piled up at the base, framed at the sides by sleek Grecian pillars. It was, all in all, quite a gorgeous sight for a house full of dead bodies.

As they descended into the tomb, Rome decided that the interior was definitely creepier than the exterior. Even the _air_ here felt dead, cool and sterile as it was. Every now and then he'd spy stray cats lounging in various corners, probably seeking reprieve from the Egyptian sun; their eyes followed him, huge and unblinking and otherworldly. Adding to the eerie atmosphere were peculiar carvings that ran along the walls, full of squirming animals and angular patterns that almost seemed to move with the flickering lamplight.

Out of morbid curiosity, he leaned forward to trace a hieroglyph. His hand was immediately smacked away by Egypt.

"Ow," he said, trying to frown at Egypt without actually looking her in the eye. He still wasn't quite sure how to approach her, _hadn't_ been sure, not since—

Egypt made a huffing sound and pointed at a sign. Relieved for something else to examine, Rome peered at it. Underneath Egyptian hieroglyphs and Demotic scrawl was a Greek translation.

"_He who disturbs the peace shall be miserable and persecuted,_" Rome read out loud. "_His years shall be diminished. His heart shall not be content in life…_"

"How uplifting," Parthia said.

Octavian looked amused. "Egyptian curses," he said. "We probably shouldn't touch anything."

The inscribed curses continued to stretch past the sign and around the walls of the crypt. Rome's wide-eyed gaze wandered after them.

"_His estate shall belong to the fire,_" Rome continued, "_and his house shall belong to the consuming flame. His relatives shall detest him. A donkey shall violate him, a donkey shall violate his wife_—oh, wow. That's…"

"Potent," Octavian offered. He look fascinated.

"Obscene," Parthia muttered.

Egypt's expression grew smug.

"So do they really work?" Rome asked Egypt, impressed enough that he momentarily forgot about the awkward rift between them.

Egypt's expression grew _more_ smug, which was enough of an answer in and of itself.

Honestly, sometimes that woman was downright terrifying.

—:—

"China!"

Yuezhi came barreling around the corner, shrill voice echoing down the streets of Alexandria like—

Wait, hadn't this already happened today?

China froze, struck first by an immense sense of déjà vu, struck second by an overenthusiastic Yuezhi who failed to rein in her momentum in time.

The two of them went blasting into a fish stand.

After a heated argument with a purple-faced fisherman who kept shouting about a "break it buy it" policy, China found himself carrying more fish and less money than he found pleasing. In addition, he now smelled heavily of fish guts. The only silver lining he could find in this situation was that Yuezhi also smelled like fish guts, and that she too was loaded down with a generous basketful of unwanted purchases.

Misery loved company.

"That's a lot of fish," Greece said pensively.

Yuezhi's smile was crooked. "Yeah, not sure what we're gonna do with so many perishables—" She suddenly dropped her basket. "Oh my gods. Greece." She gawked at her as if just noticing her for the first time. Which, knowing Yuezhi, was probably more than likely to be the case.

Greece blinked slowly. "Yuezhi. It's been a while."

Yuezhi continued to stare. "Greece."

"That is my name," Greece acknowledged.

"…_Gree_—"

"Greece was taking me to the tomb," China said, unimpressed with the inane direction of the conversation. He paused, reviewed his words in his head, and immediately backtracked. That sentence sounded weirdly ominous out of context. "I mean to say, the place that…Parthia told us Rome went to."

Yuezhi gave him a very odd look, which seemed to be a cross between surprised elation and nervous horror. China thought it was rather like the expression of someone who'd been promised access to their wildest dreams, but at the cost of sacrificing their limbs and firstborn child.

Greece was also giving him an odd look. "Rome? You're looking for Rome?"

"Yes," China said, at the same time Yuezhi shouted, "No!"

"Well, _I_ am," he amended, shooting Yuezhi an alarmed glance. "I think she was looking for you."

"Nobody's looking for anybody," Yuezhi said nervously, picking up her fallen basket. She began fiddling with a half-severed fish head. "Hey, hey, now, why don't we—see here, we have fish! Let's eat fish! Are you hungry? I'm hungry." She waved the fish head around in emphasis, nearly hitting a random passerby with its meatless spine.

China frowned and snatched the offending object out of her grasp. "Stop it, you're going to take someone's eye out. What's gotten into you?"

"China, you can't go to the tomb," Yuezhi blurted. "There are…uh. Dangers. Dangerous dangers! Undead demons and pissed off spirits and crap!"

"Wha—"

"Oh, and I also have reason to believe that Rome is a demon monkey tiger from hell and it would make me feel a whole lot better if you didn't associate with him, yeah?"

China stared.

Greece spoke up. "China, do you still need my help?"

Dimly, he noticed that Greece hadn't bothered to refute the demon-monkey-tiger thing.

"Er, yes—"

"He doesn't need help," Yuezhi cut in.

"_You_ need help!" China snapped back, finally losing all patience. "You need to get your head examined! I'm going to the mausoleum whether you like it or not. Come back and find me once you're thinking clearly again!"

He shoved the fish head back into Yuezhi's basket and stomped away.

"You're heading the wrong direction," Greece called.

He grudgingly stomped back.

—:—

Alexander lay supine within the sarcophagus. He was painstakingly embalmed and swathed in linen bandages. He also smelled faintly of honey.

Rome watched quietly as his leader placed a wreath of dry flowers upon Alexander's body, and a small diadem upon Alexander's head. Throughout it all, Octavian took great care not to actually touch the mummy. Egypt's warning glares may have helped on that front.

After murmuring a soft line in Latin, Octavian stood up and gestured at Rome. _Your turn_.

Mouth suddenly dry, Rome walked over to kneel by the body. Octavian had already gone back to stand outside the doorway and was busy conversing with Egypt about the engraving that hung above them. (_The earth shall swallow him_, it read. Octavian's fascination with Egyptian curses was starting to get a little weird.) Egypt, for her part, had picked up one of the stray cats and was stroking it as she listened to Octavian's hushed chatter.

Rome wasn't sure how long he crouched there, drinking in the sight of the late Macedonian leader. His mind churned; he couldn't stop thinking about—

"Rome."

Damn it all, couldn't Parthia see that Rome was trying to have a midlife crisis here?

"Are you going to pay your respects or are you just going to stare?"

Dear Jupiter. _Someone_ was in an awful hurry to leave.

Rome glanced up at Parthia, who was eyeing the doorway in a distracted sort of way. The man had been out of sorts ever since he came back from…whatever it was he'd been doing, and Rome felt strangely irritated by the standoffish behavior.

"I am taking the time to soak in the atmosphere," he informed Parthia loftily. "This is a great man, you see. Alexander of Macedon—surely you've heard of him?"

Parthia's mouth set in a thin, unamused line. He didn't answer.

"Oh, but you have, haven't you?" Rome needled. "After all, he was the one who conquered Persia—"

"Leave my father out of this."

Rome placed his hands against his knees, grinning now that he knew he'd struck a nerve. "Of course, now that I think of it, this whole visit must be terrible on you. I wonder what old man Persia would say. I'd say, 'sorry,' but I'm not really, you know."

Parthia's eyes flashed and Rome's grin faltered. The two of them had been trading barbs for the entire journey, but this was the first time that Parthia looked _angry_, truly angry. For a second Rome hesitated, almost wondering if he ought to take it back. Then he remembered that Parthia was the Enemy, peace treaty or no peace treaty, and who cared about Enemies, really?

Who cared, indeed…

"No," Parthia said, his voice frigid. "No, actually, this trip was quite enlightening. It's clear to me that you are—you fancy yourself an Alexander, do you not? I am sure you will follow in his footsteps marvelously. He was, after all, a _great_ man." He stalked to the edge of the chamber, fuming.

Rome—who _wasn't_ bothered at all, _of course not_—returned his gaze to the mummy.

Alexander the Great, of Macedon. Conquered his way across the world. Took Egypt and Syria and Persia, all in the name of Greece. Crushed _Greece_ in the name of Greece. Never lost a battle.

Did Rome want to be another Alexander?

…Of course he did! The man was legendary. And Rome was already well on his way, wasn't he? He had Greece, and Hispania (well, almost), and as of recently, Egypt and Gaul…

He remembered fighting Gaul. Remembered fighting him again and again, relishing the exhilaration of battle that made his blood sing in heady canticles. After the Siege of Alesia, he remembered flinging open the door to Gaul's thatched wooden house, crowing victory and intent on rubbing it in his rival's face.

He remembered finding nothing.

(_Galia est pacata._)

And then there was Egypt, mysterious Egypt, smiling one moment and scowling the next. Oh, they had danced to a dangerous tune, thriving in the air of uncertainty, the two-faced madness of civil war. They had loved, hurt, destroyed…

Alexander's face, calm and smooth and preserved ever so carefully, stared blankly at nothing.

Did Rome want to be another Alexander?

He breathed in the cloying scent of honey and wondered if he really knew the answer anymore.

—:—

Yuezhi had gone off the deep end.

China had suspected this for centuries, but today he was faced with irrefutable proof.

She had hounded them with unceasing stubbornness, clinging to China like a particularly hellish barnacle, all the while pointing out random objects and babbling nonsense. She also seemed fond of singing Greece's praises, and occasionally slapping the back of China's head with dead fish.

"Would you stop that?" he hissed, grabbing the fish before it could hit his head.

"C'mere and look, it's a cat," she said by way of response. She began to drag China's sleeve toward said feline with bizarre urgency.

He yanked his sleeve away. "What are you—I didn't come here to see cats!" He tried to stalk away but was halted by another bout of sleeve-tugging.

"Wait!" she bellowed, causing China to wince due to sheer volume. "Look at what I can do!"

She began to juggle her fish.

…Okay, that was actually sort of impressive. China allowed himself to be distracted for a few seconds; then, heaving a huge sigh, he reached out to pluck the fish from the air. Before Yuezhi knew what he was doing, he had thrown them across the street.

Yuezhi was appalled. "What the heck, don't waste food," she cried before racing away to retrieve her lost purchases.

Immediately, China turned to Greece, who had watched their antics thus far with a stoicism so unwavering that China was convinced she was at least half-statue.

"Please," he said, a little desperately, "could you distract her for a little while? Just give me the directions; I'll find my way from here."

Greece looked amused at his request, which China didn't understand because it was perfectly valid and sane under the circumstances and _oh god Yuezhi was coming back, hurry_—

"I'll try," said Greece, and China nearly melted in relief.

"_Thank_ you."

—:—

The first thing Yuezhi told herself upon realizing she'd been duped was to calm down and try not to hyperventilate.

The second thing she told herself was something along the lines of, "Dammit, Yuezhi, you had one job."

Parthia was not going to be happy. He might even try to murder her again, which sucked because death by arrow was not a pretty way to go.

She tore through the city, crashing into passersby and tripping over cats—stupid cats were everywhere—in her frantic search for China. Dear gods, she was bruised so much by now that she probably resembled a blueberry. A sweaty blueberry with bad hair.

Speaking of hair—there! A flash of long, sleek black disappearing around the corner of a building. Yuezhi's eyes sharpened. No one else in Egypt had ponytails like that, probably because no one in their right mind would grow out their hair in this kind of scorching climate. It had to be China.

Slinging her basket over her shoulder, she grinned and began her pursuit in earnest.

—:—

"Do you hear that?"

Rome looked away from Alexander's corpse, mildly surprised. He hadn't been expecting Parthia to say anything halfway civil to him for at least another two hours.

"Hear what?" he asked, rising to his feet.

And then suddenly Octavian's voice was raised in alarm, and Egypt's cat had leapt from her arms, and before Rome could figure out what was going on, a familiar figure had burst through the doorway.

Rome stared, baffled.

Wasn't that…

_…Serica?_

"Ha," Serica shouted at the floor. He was bent over, hands on knees, and panting up a storm. His ponytail had fallen to pieces; a majority of it now swung messily around his face, giving him the impression of a sentient hairball. Around his shoulder was, of all things, a basket of fish. "Ha…take that…crazy meathead…got here…first—"

"Serica," Rome said, baffled.

Serica glanced at him. A look of confusion passed over his bright red face. He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, a second figure—short, female, also carrying a basket—exploded into the chamber.

"Dammit, China!" the woman cried before plowing straight into Parthia, who had been in the middle of drawing his bow.

Chaos descended.

The woman began stammering her apologies, and Parthia was shouting something about gross incompetence, and Serica was trying to ask questions and breathe at the same time, and Egypt's cat was yowling, and Rome started laughing at the sheer insanity of it all, and—

And then Rome tripped.

He'd only taken a small step to the side. He hadn't been expecting the cat to be there.

With a brief curse, he fell forward. One hand found purchase on the side of the sarcophagus; the other scrambled frantically at something hard and crumbly.

_Pop_, went the hard-and-crumbly object.

Rome blinked and looked down.

In his hand…

In his hand, he held the broken nose of Alexander the Great.

Parthia noticed. "You _imbecile_," he said.

He looked like he wanted to say a whole lot more—except by then the hieroglyphs in the chamber had begun to glow in a funny green light, spelling vividly the words emblazoned across the top of the doorway—_The earth shall swallow him_—

"What's going on?" the woman asked in a hushed tone.

Rome stared at Alexander's nose. "I, ah…I think I activated one of Egypt's curses."

And that was when the ground fell away beneath them.

* * *

—:—

* * *

**Footnotes****:**

**1] Timeline**: Still roughly 30 BC. Octavian really did visit the tomb of Alexander the Great around this time, so Rome's presence is justified. Everyone else is here because of Plot. (Particularly China. China really shouldn't be in Egypt.)

**2] Egyptian vs. Chinese hair**: In ancient Egypt, people were fond of wigs and often shaved their heads, probably as a comfort against the hot climate. Ancient China was the opposite; people almost never cut their hair. A person's hair (and skin, and body) was seen as a gift from his or her parents, so the Chinese took care not to damage their hair in any way.

**3] Parthia and Yuezhi as middlemen**: These two nations would later become major players in the trading business between China and Rome. They would come to guard their role as middlemen rather jealously, doing things such as deliberately sabotaging China's attempts to reach Rome.

**4] Ahura Mazda**: Supreme god in Zoroastrianism, an ancient Iranian religion.

**5] Egyptian curses**: Not quite the "curse of the mummy" as immortalized by Hollywood. Egyptian curses were inscribed upon objects and places that people valued, in order to deter others from violating sacred space. It was basically, "Don't touch anything, or all this nasty crap will happen to you." Most of the curses I included in this chapter are real inscriptions from various tombs. Yes, even the donkey one.

**6] Honey**: It's said that Alexander the Great was embalmed in honey.

**7] Siege of Alesia**: Decisive battle in the Gallic Wars, after which Rome finally manages to take over Gaul.

**8] _Galia est pacata_**: Latin for "Gaul is subdued." Was written in a letter from Julius Caesar to the Roman Senate, informing them of his victory against the Gauls.

**9] Rome and Egypt in civil war**: In which Rome and Egypt meddled in each other's affairs. A lot. In the Battle of the Nile, Julius Caesar teamed up with Cleopatra VII to depose her siblings and secure the throne of Egypt. Later, during the final war of the Roman Republic, Cleopatra teamed up with Mark Antony against Octavian, which...didn't work out so well for her. And then Octavian annexed Egypt.

**10] Alexander's nose**: Based on an apocryphal story in which Octavian, during his visit to the tomb of Alexander the Great, accidentally breaks off Alexander's nose.


	5. Rome V: Curses

**A/N****:**

I am officially just making crap up. Historically valid tidbits are recorded in the footnotes; the rest is rampant fantasy.

Oh, and Yuezhi has a potty mouth, beware.

* * *

—:—

* * *

_Part 1_

**ROME**

How They Finally Met, Thank God

* * *

—:—

* * *

Yuezhi was officially weirded out.

Only a moment ago they'd all been standing on perfectly solid ground.

Then Rome broke someone's nose…and the room turned green…and the floor suddenly decided to eat them. Which was already pretty freaking weird, but then the floor—er, ceiling?—resealed itself over their heads, leaving them alone in a dark underground chamber with nothing but creepy green squiggles on the walls for illumination.

She squinted in thought. Hey, that squiggle sort of looked like a dog. Maybe a jackal?

"Dead," Parthia said in a mild, serene sort of voice. Yuezhi knew that voice. It was the voice Parthia liked to use right before laying down a particularly vindictive and crippling embargo. It was the sound of economic devastation.

Rome, bless his oblivious heart, was staring upward. "Oh, for the capricious mercies of fortune!" he said, somewhat nonsensically.

"Completely," Parthia continued in that same pleasant tone, "utterly, inexorably, dead."

"Ugmhr," came the intelligent comment by way of China. He seemed to have landed on his face. Yuezhi patted China's head with absentminded sympathy, all the while examining at the lightly glowing carvings with interest. Was it just her, or were the green squiggles glowing brighter than they had been a second ago?

Rome raised his arms to a nonexistent sky and began to monologue. "My boss! My boss and clever Egypt have escaped with their lives, but alas, it seems that we four are not so fortunate—ah, woe, woe to the innocent travelers—"

"You are dead, Rome. Your children are dead, your grandchildren are dead—"

"—and woe to the handsome warrior who absolutely didn't mean to break your nose, sorry about that, we beg forgiveness of thee, spirits of Egypt, er, and please send us back up? Please?"

"—your ancestors, were they not already dead, would be dead as well—"

"That's a stupid threat," Yuezhi said. She ducked an arrow.

"Would someone like to tell me what's going on?" China said, and that was when Yuezhi _noticed _it.

Wiggly green wall-carving-thing. It just _moved_. What the flipping heck.

"Well, if you must know, we've been cursed by Alexander's idiotic nose—"

"Um," said Yuezhi. Oh gods, they moved again. She was totally not imagining this.

"—_entirely_ Rome's fault, which is why he will be shortly dead, so if you'll excuse me—"

"Uh—guys. _Guys_." She was trying not to panic, which was difficult because the glowing wall carving was _detaching itself from the wall_ and that really shouldn't be possible, dammit.

China leveled her a frustrated glance. "What is it, now?"

Egypt's cat, hitherto unnoticed, began to hiss. Rome looked down in surprise, and Parthia shut up mid-rant.

What used to be oddly glowing wall carvings were now green-tinged jackals—real, and alive, and scary as all hell.

"Run," Yuezhi said, before lunging for the only exit that wasn't blocked by weird magical jackals.

Three nations, one cat, and a crapload of dogs followed closely in pursuit.

—:—

As it turned out, the exit led into an uncomfortably narrow hallway with, it seemed, more twists and turns than spatially possible. It was also rigged with an absolutely stupid number of booby traps. Had Egypt's cat not developed the uncanny ability of sniffing out tripwires and hidden pits, all four Nations would have probably died by now. Multiple times.

"Oh, he's so smart," Rome cooed as they fled for their lives. "We should name him. Truly, we should name him! What shall we name him?"

The cat glanced over its shoulder and favored Rome with a deadpan expression, as if to say, _Really? Right now?_

That expression sealed it.

"I'll name you Germania," Rome declared. The newly christened Germania glared at him.

"Right, so this is super cute and all," Yuezhi said, "but let's all focus on staying alive at the moment, yeah?"

"I think," Parthia began, but they never did get to hear what Parthia thought, because Germania began to yowl in agitation.

No, not agitation. Alarm. A warning—

_There._

Double tripwire.

Upon sighting the nigh-invisible string, the Nations scrambled to avoid it. Unfortunately, this time they just weren't quick enough. No one was sure who exactly had set it off, but suffice to say that someone _did_—some hidden mechanism had been activated, and the ominous, scuttling series of clicks was all too audible even with the barking of jackals at their backs. Within seconds, they found themselves face-to-face with a rapidly approaching barrage of arrows. Possibly poison-tipped. No one wanted to find out.

"Down," China snapped, grabbing Yuezhi by the collar and yanking her to the floor. Yuezhi's chin met violently with stone. She began to swear.

Parthia, perhaps unused to being on the receiving end of a volley of arrows, froze in surprise instead of doing something useful. Like ducking.

Rome, perhaps without thinking, tackled Parthia to safety.

The arrows sailed harmlessly over their heads, and then landed not-so-harmlessly in the midst of the pursuing jackals.

Amid canine howls of pain, Parthia rose unsteadily to his feet. He was staring at Rome with wide eyes. "You—"

"Move now, talk later," China said, charging forward with Yuezhi in tow—or, more accurately, Yuezhi's ear. Germania mewed in approval and leapt into China's fish basket.

"Lucky Rome didn't break your jaw," Yuezhi said to Parthia as she stumbled past. "C'mon, let's move it, people."

Parthia's eyes flicked briefly over to the Asian pair before turning back to Rome, who wouldn't meet his gaze. Indeed, the Roman Empire suddenly seemed to find the floor inordinately fascinating.

"Agreed," Parthia finally said, before seizing Rome's arm and hurrying after them.

—:—

"Go inside the chamber, he said. Block the door, he said. We'll be safe inside, he said!"

China fended off a whiplike lashing from a long, spotted tail. "How was I supposed to know the paintings would come alive?"

"They wouldn't have come alive if you hadn't made Rome move the statue!"

"You don't know that!" China shouted back as he dodged the creature's gnashing teeth. It had _horrendous_ teeth, long and slick with venom—a viper's mouth in a leopard's face. "And if we hadn't moved the statue, the crazy dogs would be all over us, so stop complaining and lend us a little help here, why don't you!"

"Ahaha, how about _hell no_. I'm not a crazy fighting maniac like you three, so count me out!" Yuezhi was high above them, clinging to the upper wall of the chamber like a giant four-legged spider. China wasn't even sure how she was _doing_ that, since the wall didn't seem to have any visible footholds. He turned his head to shout more obscenities at her, but in his distraction he let his guard down. Sharp, leopard-like claws swiped toward him, and he realized his mistake too late—

An arrow suddenly sprouted from the beast's paw, halting its trajectory. The serpent-leopard howled, and China was able to dart out of the way in time.

"Thank you," China said, slightly shaken from having almost been mauled.

"Do not lose focus," Parthia called from his vantage point on the head of the statue. It was the same statue Rome had hauled up against the chamber door to keep out the jackals. (An interesting coincidence, since the statue itself looked to be a strange combination of jackal and man.)

Germania hissed in warning, and Parthia turned his bow toward the other side of the chamber, where a grinning Rome was locked in combat with a second beast. Another timely arrow saved Rome from spontaneous amputation.

Meanwhile, in China's side of the chamber, snake fangs flashed downward once more. China rolled out of the way, before swiftly redirecting his momentum to land a series of palm strikes against the creature's freakishly long neck. His blows, which normally could have felled a tree, barely fazed the monster at all. China blamed the armored scales that lined its body.

"Parthia," he said, ditching the palm strike method and now attempting to bludgeon the creature with his basket of fish, "nothing I'm doing is working. We need a piercing attack. Can you land a killing blow?"

Parthia frowned in concentration. "They're moving too fast, and I can't afford to waste any arrows. I only have a few left."

"So basically you guys need a distraction," Yuezhi said.

"A distraction?" Rome spoke up for the first time. He'd been too busy laughing in delight at the prospect of physical combat to really engage in conversation, much to China and Parthia's consternation. "Oh, now, I can do that. Hey, someone cover me while I set up, okay?"

Before anyone could ask what Rome meant, he cheerfully settled down in the middle of the chamber and began pulling out a battered contraption.

Parthia nearly fell off his statue. "What—_what_ _are doing_—"

"To hell with what he's doing," Yuezhi said, staring down at them over her shoulder. "Where was he _keeping _it?"

China didn't know, and he honestly didn't care. All he knew was that with Rome suddenly abandoning the fight, China now had to deal with two serpent-leopards at the same time. _Two_, damn it.

"I hate you," China said, eye twitching as both serpent-leopards converged on him. "All of you. Well, maybe not Parthia, but I hate the rest of you, I really do. If I die, I swear I will come back as a _gui_ and haunt you for the rest of my unlife—"

He stopped talking in favor of frantically dodging the monsters' combined assault. Just as the serpent-leopards began another enthusiastic round of Who Can Bite China's Head Off First, salvation came—

—in the form of fish.

China blinked.

Yuezhi, in what was perhaps the most bizarre form of aerial support China had ever seen, was slinging _fish_ at the serpentine beasts.

It distracted them for only a fraction of a moment, but a fraction was all China needed to avoid getting slaughtered gruesomely.

Briefly, China allowed a smidgeon of hope into his heart.

And then Yuezhi ran out of fish.

"Okay, so…now what?" Yuezhi said nervously.

As if in answer, Rome strummed the strings of his contraption and began to sing.

—:—

China stared. "I can't believe that worked."

Parthia nodded. "Such is the power of idiocy."

"No," Rome said, tapping his temple wisely. "Such is the power of _music._"

It wasn't a complete lie. In an unbelievable stroke of luck, Rome's music had distracted the serpent-leopards for long enough that Parthia was able to fully incapacitate them. All it had taken were two carefully aimed arrows, each one straight through the brain. Once dead, the strange creatures had dissolved into ribbons of green. Now they were nothing more than cold paintings on a cold floor.

"So you are Rome," China said thoughtfully.

"And you are Serica," Rome said, folding up his musical contraption. He grinned. "You still fight well."

China's ears reddened just a bit. "Oh. Well. Er, you too." He coughed and twiddled with his fish basket. "And my name's China, actually."

"Ah, really? China, then."

Yuezhi was watching China with wide eyes. "What? How did you know he was Rome?"

"…You've all been calling him _Rome_ this entire time. It wasn't difficult to figure out."

"Oh." Yuezhi scuffed her shoe, looking sheepish. "Yeah, um, so. I guess I should tell you that he's not actually a demon monkey tiger from hell."

"I beg to differ," Parthia said.

Rome blinked. "What did you say, little rose? I'm not a what?"

Yuezhi choked. "_Little rose?_ Um, my name is _Yuezhi_—"

An impatient meow cut their conversation short. Four heads turned to see Germania pacing back and forth near the far end of the room, where a single portal led into the blank unknown. The cat's eyes narrowed, and its tail flicked meaningfully toward the front entrance, which was still wedged shut by the jackal-headed statue.

Relentless scratching.

Muffled barking.

The blocked door had started to crack.

"Gather whatever is salvageable," Parthia said. "We need to move on."

—:—

They had an excellent head-start.

…Which they'd still _have_, if only Rome would have the decency to _not_ stop in the middle of the corridor to admire the decor.

Parthia closed his eyes and prayed for patience. Perhaps a slow, simple explanation would be best. Even small children could be reasoned with.

"Rome," he said. "I do not know if you've noticed this, but we are currently in the middle of fleeing for our lives. Please sightsee in your own time. Preferably when your time isn't so intrinsically tied to the wellbeing of three other Nations."

Rome flicked his wrist in a shooing gesture, as if warding off an insect. Parthia felt his irritation exponentially multiply.

Yuezhi sidled over. "Y'know, Parthia's kind of right. So what's up, hmm? I mean, if we're gonna die because of you, I want to know why."

"I think I've found it," Rome said.

China shifted. He was still carrying that fish basket, Parthia noticed, although it looked somewhat more battered than it had before.

"Found what?" China asked.

Rome turned to face them, tracing the hieroglyphs with excited fingers. "The curse—figuring out the curse!"

"Huh?"

"What are you blathering about?"

"Look," said Rome, "I know Egypt. When it comes to thespians we always think of Greece—but, you know, it's Egypt who's the real drama queen."

"Your point—"

"My point is she has it all written down here. Like a story, don't you see? If I read it then we'll know how the story goes. We'll know what we need to do to get out!"

Parthia regarded him thoughtfully. This actually sounded halfway promising. He decided, against his better judgment, to extend the proverbial olive branch. "Well, what does it say?"

"Oh. Well, er, I'm not actually sure—"

The metaphorical olive branch promptly disintegrated into metaphorical sludge. "Alright, that's enough. You've wasted our time for absolutely no sensible reason—"

"—because I need time to _read_ the hieroglyphs, blast it all! It's a confusing language, Parthia!"

Yuezhi, ill-mannered as always, interrupted the conversation. "Wait, so. All you need is time?"

Parthia sighed. "I'm afraid, _Tókharoi_, that time isn't something we have in abundance."

"Unless," China said slowly, "we _make_ time."

For a moment everyone simply stared at China. Then Yuezhi began to cackle.

"So basically," she said, grinning, "you guys need a distraction."

—:—

After Seric—no, after _China_ had gone charging off into who-knows-where, with a tattered basket of smelly fish clenched in his hand like a divine weapon, and Yuezhi tumbling gracelessly alongside him, and Germania tucked under an arm—

—and, ooh, those two had better not get Germania killed, or Rome would Have Terrible Words with them—

_Anyway_. After that.

After that Rome had switched into "scholarly-archaeologist" mode. It wasn't a mode he utilized often, because as a whole ladies tended to be more impressed with how far he could throw a war chariot, rather than how much he knew about Egyptian artifacts. Nonetheless, his perusal of Egypt's message had gone quite swimmingly.

Up until the point where Rome had the misfortune of stepping over a pitfall trap, that is.

A pitfall trap with spikes at the bottom.

(Because, you know, no kill like overkill, haha.)

He had expected, naturally, to have been gutted like one of China and Yuezhi's fish upon impact.

What he _hadn't_ expected was to have been caught by the arm and summarily hauled back from the gates of death, nearly dislocating his shoulder in the process.

Wordlessly, Parthia helped Rome to his feet, and then proceeded to cast a mystified glance at his own hand, as if not quite comprehending what he himself had just done.

For once, Rome was at a loss of what to say. After what seemed like eons of mental scavenging, he settled on the eloquent declaration of, "Uh."

A pause.

"I mean, uh—I mean. Well…thank—"

"Don't," Parthia cut in, looking vaguely uncomfortable. "It is, as your people would say, _quid pro quo_."

Awkward silence.

Parthia cleared his throat. "I believe you were supposed to be reading?"

"Oh, right." Rome turned back to his fervent analysis of Egypt's hieroglyphs.

"Thank you," said Parthia, _almost_ sarcastically—but, no, the tone wasn't quite right. Too quiet, and not enough sardonic stress on the first syllable.

Rome kept his eyes glued to the wall, with nothing more than a microscopic nod to indicate that he'd heard.

Inexplicably, he found himself trying very hard not to smile.

He wasn't quite sure how successful he was.

—:—

A single crack slowly drew its way across the barricaded door, joining a vast network of fracture lines that veined the stone in trembling black.

For one tension-filled moment, all was silent.

Then, like an innocent fishing village under the wrath of a tsunami, the blocked door of the serpent-leopard chamber burst asunder. The large statue of the jackal man, caught too in the force of the incoming momentum, tipped aside and met the ground in a terrible crash that shook the walls.

And the jackals swarmed through.

They lifted eager snouts to the air, quick paws padding through the chamber, dark hides rippling in eerie green patterns. The scent of their prey was strong; the air _reeked_ of it, oily-thick and pungent, like treasure from a long-forgotten sea. It bled into their memories, it painted their tongues in saliva, it had their eyes rolling in hunger…

_This way_.

As one, they continued the hunt.

—:—

Parthia's eyes narrowed.

"Something is coming."

Rome glanced up in concern. Parthia shook his head.

"No; keep reading. I'll handle it, whatever it is."

With only the slightest of hesitations, he reached for the last arrow in his quiver.

—:—

It was with unwavering confidence that they navigated the dark-dank labyrinth. They could _feel_ it now, a bone-deep ache spurring them forward as the scent grew ever stronger, as the gap between hunter and prey dwindled ever smaller.

Close now, their quarry was _close_ now, this they knew to be true, for their noses never lied…

Oh! They could see it, just as surely as they could smell it, this sweetly pervasive stench that clung to the walls in an intoxicating fog.

There—_there_, at the end of the trail—

Two humans, standing by the wall.

—:—

A shadow flashed into view. The outline of a jackal's head.

Parthia raised his bow.

—:—

The dark-haired human drew back his arm—as if to attack them, or throw something at them—and, driven by a preemptive instinct, the jackals bolted forward.

The human threw—

The jackals lunged—

The fish went _c__lick_ against the tiles—

They fell.

And fell.

…And…fell?

"Surprise," Yuezhi said with great cheer, watching as the jackals plummeted into the booby-trap-induced sinkhole.

As the last of the howls died down, the depths of the sinkhole was momentarily overtaken by a flash of green. China peered inside. There was, peculiarly, no evidence of the jackals' demise, save for a haphazard lattice of canine-esque imprints that lined the sides of the pit. Almost like wall carvings, minus the wall.

Hmm. Did all the strange creatures here revert to their original forms when they died?

In any case, China's plan had worked out rather nicely. The arrow trap from earlier had shown that the jackals were no less immune to the tomb's insane selection of booby traps; with Germania on their side, locating one of the traps and rigging it to their advantage had been a simple matter. Add that to the trail of fish they'd lined down the hallways (not to mention China and Yuezhi both still smelled strongly of fish guts) and the jackals had ended up exactly where they wanted them.

Jackals _liked_ fish.

Yuezhi grinned. Imagine that—all that fish they'd been forced to buy had turned out to be surprisingly helpful in the end.

"Let's go," China said, brushing off his hands. "Hopefully, Rome will have finished by now."

—:—

"I'm done," Rome said, spinning around with such gusto that he nearly tripped back into the pitfall trap.

"Excellent," Parthia said into the feathered fletching of a nocked arrow. "Did it provide any information on how to vanquish this…beast?"

Said beast turned a placid eye on the threatening arrow, and Parthia realized with a sudden sense of unease that this strange _creature_ shared an uncanny degree of resemblance with the man-jackal statue from earlier. Even so, it made no move to come closer and was, by all appearances, content to simply stare.

"Anubis," said Rome.

"What?"

Rome's expression became very strange. "Anubis," he repeated, gesturing to the wall of hieroglyphs. "It's his name, according to this."

Parthia waited for more useful information. Rome's hand fell on his shoulder, and he tensed.

"I think I know what we need to do," Rome said, his voice uncharacteristically serious, "but you're going to have to put down the weapon."

—:—

"You slime," said Yuezhi. "You utter slime. You rotten earwax-eating piece of utter _rat slime_."

China did not normally have much patience for the foul-tongued, insult-laced rants of nonsense that often spilled forth from Yuezhi's mouth, but this time he was rather inclined to agree with her.

They—that is, China, Yuezhi, Parthia and Rome—had been brought back to the serpent-leopard chamber. The ghastly creatures still stared sightlessly up at them from the painted floor, but the jackal-man statue was no longer there. In the center of the circular room was a small, stone pedestal that previously had not existed. On top of the pedestal rested a set of black weighing scales, rimmed in gold.

Four similarly colored sarcophagi, situated in a rough semicircle around the pedestal, housed three disgruntled Nations and one Nation who _should_ have been disgruntled but was instead humming blithely, _damn him_.

If China were in a better mood, he might have found this situation comical. After all, the four of them looked ridiculously like Egyptian mummies, trussed up in strips of cloth as they were.

Alas, being bound in linen and crammed in a premature coffin tended to make one cranky. Particularly when there was no hope of rescue in sight, since all potential saviors were bound up in linen in their _own_ coffins right there, _right_ next to him.

Rome wore an inane smile on his face.

"Relax," he said, and China wondered for the umpteenth time how this man could _possibly _be the Roman Empire, _surely_ there had to be a mistake somewhere, because if _this_ was Daqin, the Great Qin, the empire of the west—oh, by the sky, the Western world was doomed, wasn't it?

"We did everything," said Yuezhi. "Everything and _more_, godsdammit. You guys wanted a distraction? Screw distractions, we distracted the hell out those dog bastards _and_ kicked their asses to the netherworld. And what did _you_ _two_ do in return?" She took a deep breath and began to shout. "You flipping_ arrange for us all to get kidnapped!"_

Some distant, hazy portion of China's mind that wasn't focused on all-consuming anger noted the irony in Yuezhi's vehement condemnation of kidnapping. But then he remembered how stupid this entire situation was, and the vague thought was quickly swept away.

"Do not worry, little rose," Rome said, infuriatingly blasé. "I have read the writing on the wall—"

"Probably not the best choice in metaphor," Parthia said.

"Shut up," came Rome's pleasant response. "It isn't a metaphor. Anyway, I have _literally_ read the writing on the wall, and after much anguished consideration I've come to the conclusion that this is the only way to leave this realm."

"In _coffins_?" Yuezhi shrieked.

"Now, that's just out of context—"

China made a frustrated noise. "What do you mean, 'out of context'? We're in coffins! We're being embalmed! There is nothing out of context in this situation!"

Rome donned a maudlin _why-is-everyone-ganging-up-on-me_ expression and turned to Parthia in search of support. He was rewarded with an unimpressed frown for his efforts.

"You must admit that their anger is understandable," said Parthia. "When you go on and on about _getting out_, people are naturally going to assume that you mean _alive_."

"Anubis isn't going to kill us, he's just going to take our hearts," Rome said in a failed attempt at being soothing.

The color of Yuezhi's face now matched her hair. "_What?_"

"_Not_ literally," Rome added, just as Anubis calmly reached over and stabbed a hand into Rome's upper torso.

Appalled silence.

China watched in fascinated horror as the jackal-headed man withdrew something small, round, warmly glowing—

"That is not a heart," he said in numb confusion, because he'd _seen_ human hearts before (no questions, please, thank you very much) and, wait, _how_ was there no puncture wound? It was as if Anubis had phased straight through Rome's chest, cloth and all, like a ghost.

Yuezhi's method of questioning was somewhat more direct.

"What the fuck was that doing in your chest," she said.

"A heart—"

"That is _not_ a heart," China repeated, because he felt that certain things needed to be stressed.

"It is in every way that matters," Rome said, the calmest China had ever seen of a person who'd just been _disemboweled_. "Anubis is just going to measure our hearts, you see. Once he finds out we're decent people who didn't _mean_ to break off anyone's noses"—a scoff from Parthia, which Rome ignored—"he'll release us and we can go home. That's what the message said."

China frowned. What did he mean, measure their hearts? How did that even work? Was this some twisted version of ethical evaluation? Oh, great sky above, _was_ this an ethical evaluation? Because if it was, surely, _surely_ China couldn't—with _the kind of things he'd done_—

He didn't manage to finish the panicked thought, because Anubis ambled over and proceeded to disembowel them one by one.

Schlik.

Schlik.

Schlik.

China stared at the four spherical not-hearts that now sat glowing in Anubis' right hand.

He felt extremely violated.

"That was extremely violating," said Parthia, obviously operating on the same level as China. Great minds _did_ think alike. He knew there was a reason he liked Parthia.

"What the fuck was that doing in _my_ chest," said Yuezhi. And then, a little hysterically, "That dog thing just touched my _chest_, what the hell."

"Relax," Rome said again.

As Anubis returned to the central pedestal, China had never felt further from relaxation in all his thousands of years of living.

The jackal-headed man withdrew a large ostrich feather from absolutely nowhere and placed it on the right-hand weighing dish. With that done, Anubis turned to face them. His eyes were unnervingly human.

Much to everyone's surprise, Anubis opened his mouth and spoke.

"_The feather of Ma'at is in place. Let the weighing of souls begin._"

—:—

Four times the left scale tipped down.

Four times the feather tipped up.

—:—

A moment of pensive silence.

Rome found himself holding his breath despite himself. If he'd read the hieroglyphs correctly—and he _knew_ he had, because despite constant allegations of Parthia and Germania (the non-feline version), Rome was _not_ an idiot, at least not completely, and definitely not where it concerned Egypt—anyway, if he'd read correctly, then the entire point of Egypt's curse was to protect the body of Alexander the Great from would-be intruders, like grave robbers, or fanatic desecrators, or curious children.

And, oh, Egypt was…_harsh_, yes, but she was far from the kind to indiscriminately slaughter curious children along with grave robbers.

Which was where Anubis came in, supposedly. The weighing of souls was the fail-safe, the Test of Character that would separate greedy thieves from the innocent.

And the jackals…undoubtedly Anubis' helpers. Looking back, perhaps they had misinterpreted the situation. Perhaps the dogs hadn't been trying to harm, but to _escort_, to _lead_. After all, hadn't they been chased to this very spot, this strange chamber that housed the statue of Anubis? Perhaps they had judged too quickly. Even the serpent-leopards had only started attacking _after_ Rome relocated the statue.

A slight squeak echoed weakly through the chamber as Anubis removed the last heart from the tray.

Rome could feel the stares of the other three Nations, all frowns and furrowed eyebrows, as they waited for Anubis' verdict. He flashed them a reassuring smile; no need to worry, they clearly hadn't come here with malicious intent, so there was no way that they'd—

"_The judgment stands thus_," Anubis said, and every pair of eyes in the room snapped onto his canine visage. "_You have, each and every one of you, failed the weighing of souls."_

—fail.

_"Farewell. Send Ammit my greetings._"

—:—

If, on some cruel whimsy, a greater deity had decided to create a mixture of three of the most vicious man-eating creatures known to mankind, then the result would be Ammit.

Her front legs were those of a wildcat; her hind legs were those of a hippopotamus. Ridged, armor-like skin trailed up her neck and around her face. Generous amounts of teeth adorned a long, triangular snout. At the crest of her head were slitted crocodile eyes. Whereas Anubis' eyes were eerily human, Ammit's were cold and reptilian.

No mercy existed in those eyes.

It happened quickly.

Before anyone could utter a word, Anubis flung the four glowing hearts in the air, and Ammit's jaws opened to snap them up.

In the period of brief suspension where the hearts reached the height of their trajectory, Rome managed to catch the eyes of his fellow Nations.

They shared a darting, searching glance—Parthia, his face curiously blank—Yuezhi, still flushed with agitation—China, who…

Rome barely had time to wonder why China looked so _resigned _before there was high-pitched yowl and then—

Everything was green light.

* * *

—:—

* * *

**Footnotes****:**

**1] Serpent-leopards**: Feline creatures with snakelike necks. Called _serpopards_, for lack of a better term. These curious beasts can be found on both Egyptian and Mesopotamian artifacts.

**2] Olive branch**: Not actually one of my countless anachronistic phrases, surprisingly enough. The symbolic olive branch has its origins in ancient Greece, and became especially prevalent as an emblem of peace during the Pax Romana.

**3] Anubis**: The famous jackal-headed Egyptian god, protector of the dead, conductor of souls. Associated with mummification and embalming. The _Book of the Dead_ shows him in an iconic scene performing the weighing of the heart.

**4] Ma'at**: Egyptian goddess of truth, order, and justice. Her symbol is a feather.

**5] Weighing of souls**: Based on the ritual in the _Book of the Dead_, an ancient Egyptian book on funerary practices. Basically, your heart is weighed against the feather of Ma'at. If your heart is lighter than the feather, then yay! Your soul is worthy, and you get to move on to the afterlife. But if your heart is heavier, it is fed to Ammit, the Devourer—or, in other versions, tossed into a lake of fire. Either way, you're kind of screwed._  
_

**6] Ammit**: The Devourer of Souls, symbol of destruction. A combination of crocodile, lion, and hippopotamus (three of the scariest creatures known to ancient Egyptians).


	6. Rome VI: Felis Ex Machina

**A/N****:**

So Himaruya is designing the Roman emperors! Which is _exciting_, but also a little depressing since I'm certain my interpretation of Augustus (aka Octavian) will end up being completely different from his.

In any case, I apologize in advance for probable OOC-ness regarding Octavian. In the future, that is. Once he actually becomes canon.

* * *

—:—

* * *

_Part 1_

**ROME**

How the Socratic Method Was Employed

* * *

—:—

* * *

Praise be to thee, O Ra, exalted Sekhem  
Thou art the Great Cat  
The avenger of the gods  
And the judge of words  
And the president of the sovereign chiefs  
And the governor of the holy Circle  
Thou art indeed the bodies of the Great Cat.

—_The Seventy-Five Praises of Ra_, _c.1200 - 1100 BC_

—:—

Egypt lifted her amulet to her lips, mouthing a prayer to Bastet. The words of _heka_ burned quick and heavy against her throat. She found herself struggling; each word, each phrase was a chore. It felt pointless. It felt like swimming upstream.

Today was the fifth epagomenal day, which promised absolute _horrid_ conditions for spellcasting. So much so that she normally would not have even bothered, but…

But it had been too long.

"That's it, I'm going after them," said Greece.

She made to move toward the hole in the ground, but Egypt grabbed her by the arm, bringing her to a halt. While Egypt _had_ managed to reopen the cavernous moat-like pitfall that surrounded Alexander's tomb, there was no good reason to go launching oneself inside. The hole was still too deep; perhaps they could get _in_, yes, but that didn't mean they could get _out_.

Greece frowned at her. "Egypt, you must admit that this is getting ridiculous."

Egypt just shook her head. She was _not_ about to let her friend go marching in on a one-way trip to Duat.

"We'll wait a bit longer," Octavian said evenly, with nothing more than a pensive frown to suggest a lack of his usual blithe assurance. Egypt snorted. He was clearly not as composed as he'd like them to think. Well. Served him _right_ for asking her to—on such an inauspicious day, no less—

"What exactly are we waiting for?" Greece asked.

Egypt turned kohl-rimmed eyes to the pit. Even from so high above, she could make out the lack of familiar sunk-relief carvings, which normally would have been outlined in the verdant glow of _heka_. Clearly, the jackals had already left. But then what was taking so long?

Octavian's posture straightened. "Look," he said.

They looked.

At the bottom of the pit, a large, globular cloud of green bloomed into brief existence, before vanishing with a flourish.

In its place were four bedraggled people and one bedraggled cat.

Four people blinked, as if awakening from a long sleep.

The cat was still glowing.

Greece stared. "What on earth," she said.

Abruptly, the cat ceased to radiate light. Then, arching its back, it spat out what appeared to be four glowing hairballs. No, Egypt realized, not hairballs but _hearts_—they drifted upward, shining like the Eye of Ra, and proceeded to sink effortlessly into the chests of the four dazed-looking Nations below.

"_What on earth_," Greece repeated, wide-eyed.

Egypt patted her arm soothingly. For the uninitiated, _heka_ was an odd magic to witness. And Bastet tended to work in mysterious ways.

Octavian, irreverent snake that he was, ignored Greece's bewilderment and started waving like a wildman.

"Welcome back!" he said.

—:—

Rome's mind was in a daze. He almost couldn't comprehend what had happened, but the evidence stood there, right before his eyes, licking a paw without a care in the world.

Germania.

It had been _Germania_ who saved them, who snatched back their hearts from the jaws of Ammit, who wrapped them in odd green fog before magicking them to safety.

Sweet thunder of Jupiter, _Germania could teleport_.

"You," Rome said, seizing Germania by the armpits, "are quite possibly the most amazing cat I've ever met. You are brilliant, Germania, and I want you to know that I love you."

Germania glared at him with an expression that said: _Put me down, fool_.

China, who had been eyeing the cat with the oddest look on his face, cleared his throat. "We still need to figure out how to get out," he said, evidently resolving to analyze the Teleporting Cat issue at a later date.

"I can climb," Yuezhi said.

Parthia raised an eyebrow. "With vertical walls?"

"Tch, yeah. Easy peasy."

The other eyebrow went up. "Can you carry us?"

"Um, no? You guys are _heavy_, no offense, but really, you're like freaking cows. You sure you can't just climb it with me?"

"Unfortunately, the rest of us aren't part-monkey," China said, "so we're going to have to find another way."

Yuezhi scratched her head. "Can't the demonic cat thing just teleport you guys back up?"

Rome peered at Germania thoughtfully, whose ears flattened. The cat hissed.

"Ah…perhaps it was a one-time sort of thing," he said.

In the end, their escape turned out to be a group effort.

Rome, ever the engineer, dismantled his handmade musical instrument ("Seriously," said Yuezhi, "where does he _keep_ that thing?") and fashioned from its remains a crude grappling hook.

Parthia, ignoring Rome's soulful sighs over the fleeting nature of art, then proceeded to attach the hook to the head of his arrow.

China busied himself with weaving a long cord out of their leftover linen bandages. He was aided by efforts from above; Greece, Egypt and Octavian had taken to throwing down lengths of sturdy rope, all of which China incorporated into the growing rope chain with little fuss.

Yuezhi, meanwhile, was hanging from the side of a wall, driving flat bits of metal (leftovers from Rome's instrument) into the stone. "Footholds," she explained cheerfully, when asked. "For you losers down there." She hastily scooted over to avoid China's angry whip of mummy bandages.

Once Rome had tied the patchwork rope onto Parthia's arrow (China, recognizing Rome's gruesome-looking device from a previous misadventure, had refused to touch it), the party was all set.

With careful aim, Parthia launched his last arrow upward. It caught neatly on the jagged lip of the pit's opening, China's rope falling in line with Yuezhi's footholds.

One by one, they climbed.

—:—

Rome had not expected Greece's presence in the tomb. He'd been under the impression that Greece hated Alexander.

"It's complicated," Greece said simply, when Rome asked. And then: "Are you alright?"

He conjured up a breezy grin for her benefit, hesitating only when Greece's frown grew even more concerned—truly, that woman was much too good at reading him—and hastily allowed himself to be swept away courtesy of his boss and Egypt.

They relocated to Egypt's house to recuperate, as all four had sustained modest injuries from their underground escapades. It was here that the entire story came out. Or most of it, anyway.

"You failed?" Egypt said, surprised.

"You can talk," Parthia said, in equal surprise.

Egypt shot him a quelling look, before continuing in a tight voice, "Do you know what it means, to fail?"

Three blank looks, which Rome tried hard to emulate. He did not like how Greece's brow furrowed, but Egypt, at least, seemed not to notice.

"In the weighing of souls," she said, "if the heart is heavier than the feather, then it is judged to be impure."

Yuezhi considered this. "So basically…we're all assholes?"

"One of you, at any rate," Egypt said, looking askance at Rome.

Ah, Egypt. Tongue like a viper's, when she bothered to use it.

Rome grinned and flipped his hand in a casual gesture. "Egypt? What are you trying to say?"

The air grew tense, and for a moment Rome did not understand—then, belatedly, he realized that his words were all wrong, the wrong tone, the wrong inflection, not playful enough, too _tired_…

"Excuse me," China said, before dragging a bewildered Yuezhi after him. A harshly whispered conversation drifted in their wake as they exited the room.

_"Flipping heck, China, what are you—"_

_"Learn to read the atmosphere, meathead—"_

And suddenly, it was as if everyone couldn't leave quickly enough. Greece, Parthia, Octavian. In mere seconds, Egypt and Rome found themselves the sole occupants of the room, apart from Germania the cat. From the way Egypt's hands tightened around the cloth of her dress, she was just as blindsided by this new development as Rome was.

"I'm sorry."

Egypt's head snapped up.

Rome coughed uncomfortably. "I…I just realized I never apologized. Not at Actium, not at the Nile. So…" He chanced an upward glance; their gazes locked. Rome swallowed. "I'm aware it doesn't mean much to you, but I don't…I _am_ sorry, Egypt."

He didn't expect her to reply; Egypt was, after all, a taciturn person. Not to mention rather unforgiving in personality.

So he was both surprised and unsurprised when she lifted her chin and said, "Do not insult me with your apologies."

Hastily, he attempted a series of placating gestures, but Egypt wasn't finished.

"You always try to take more than your share," Egypt said. "I should have known that it would apply to blame as well." She exhaled noisily. "Do not be so _arrogant_, Rome. The fault is not entirely yours. We two have both done terrible things to each other. For that, I am sorry as well."

Rome blinked. Somehow the conversation had veered off into unknown territory. It was like anticipating an attack from an angry bull, only to have the bull stop just short of violent impact. He was unsure of how to handle this.

In the silence that followed, Germania took the opportunity to leap into Egypt's lap. She began to absently stroke at the cat's fur.

"I did not think you would fail," Egypt admitted quietly. "If I had, I probably would not have…well, I suppose it does not matter now. Octavian always gets his way." She spoke of Rome's boss with a hint of bitterness. "Bastet would have protected you, in any case."

Cryptic words. Probably would not have…_what_, exactly? Surely she didn't mean…

"Who is Bastet?" Rome asked, mostly because he didn't want to think about what Octavian had to do with anything, or any of the implications thereof.

Egypt held up Germania in response. "Bastet. You have grown rather fond of her, if I am to understand."

"Oh, I see."

A pause.

"Wait," Rome said, aghast, "Germania is a _woman?_"

Another pause, and then Egypt began to laugh. Rome's thoughts circulated rapidly between the fact that apparently, Germania was not a he but a _she_, dear Jupiter, what _was_ this madness, and—

And, oh, Egypt had a really nice smile, when she bothered to use it.

—:—

By the time Greece had, with the weary air of a veteran, finished patching everyone up ("How is it, Rome," she sighed, "that you always get into these kinds of situations?"), evening had arrived and had brought with it a steadily darkening sky. Egypt retired to her quarters, citing "magical fatigue," and left Greece to play host to four hungry guests.

So, for supper, they hijacked Egypt's rooftop.

In the first ten minutes, there was unspoken agreement that all conversation would be put on hold in favor of more engaging dinner companions, like roast fish and grilled radishes and barley bread. A blissful atmosphere permeated the rooftop picnic. They ate things. They drank things. All was well.

Then Yuezhi broke the silence.

"Sho-werrah frenshow, rie?"

"…Pardon?"

"…What kind of language was that?"

Yuezhi waved at her mouth and made a noisy show of swallowing her chunk of beef. China's nose wrinkled. Parthia looked unimpressed. Rome…well, Rome likely didn't notice. He was busy attempting to make eye contact with Greece, who in turn was busy sleeping (making his quest somewhat difficult).

"So," Yuezhi repeated, ignoring China's complaints about her lack of basic table manners, "we're all friends now, right?"

A long stretch of silence. Then they all started talking at once.

"Eh, does that mean you wish to join the Roman Empire?"

"Is it really that simple to just—"

"Wait, Rome, I thought you were a Republic—"

"—become friends, just like that? For people like us?"

"Semantics, little rose! I've always been an empire at heart!"

"Oh, me too! But hey, don't call me tha—"

"And anyway, I've been thinking of changing my name—"

"_Tókharoi_, I thought we agreed _not_ to encourage relations between—"

"Relax, Parthia, they already know each other. And we already tried actively keeping 'em apart, might as well—"

"Meathead. What are you talking about?"

"…Oh! Crap. Er—nothing, China—hahahahehe—_chdkkr_—" Yuezhi choked on her food, and flailed a bit before recovering. "_Ung._ _Hyeh_. Ha. Ha. You're funny, old man."

China's eyes narrowed. Double crap. Centuries of knowing each other had clearly given him some very keen BS-detection skills. "Yuezhi—"

"Hey!" Yuezhi said, a bit too quickly. "Hey, _hey_, nobody answered my question. We all friends, yeah?"

On the other side of a suspicious-eyed China, Parthia was shaking his head. "You mean you were serious? Have you lost all mental faculty, or do you really expect me to form an alliance with _Rome_?"

And it was _just so like_ Parthia, to be all business and no play, that Yuezhi spat out an apple seed in exasperation. (It flew through the air and collided with Greece's eye. Greece awoke with a start.)

"Parthia," Yuezhi said, "seriously, I'm not talking about alliances."

"Well, what else—"

"Look, could you shut up for just one second about the you that is your country, and pay attention to the you that _isn't?_ We all just fought through the _Egyptian underworld_ together. _You can't do that and not come out friends_. Fact. Yes?"

She scanned everyone's expressions. Rome, grinning. China, curiously blank-faced. Oh, and Greece, too—one eye open, watching them silently.

Parthia cleared his throat, looking uncharacteristically awkward and unsure. He raised his half-finished cup of _henqet_.

"I suppose—if—a toast, then, is in order," he said, haltingly. His stumbling words were not nearly as eloquent as usual, and something about that, Yuezhi thought, was strangely endearing.

Rome shot up like an arrow. "A toast!" he echoed with enthusiasm.

Yuezhi grinned. "That's more like it!" She raised the entire beaker of beer. "To the start of an awesome friendship!"

They all looked to China, who seemed weirdly anxious. A brief hesitation. Then, wordlessly, he raised his own chalice in response.

The cups clinked—a promise.

(And maybe that was all it took in the end.)

—:—

The moon kept her face half-turned away, like a shy child. But she had been growing steadily bigger over the past few nights, and China knew that it wouldn't be long before the moon would be smiling again, full-faced with dimpled shadows.

A chill wind blew, sending a shiver down his spine. Contrary to the sweltering heat of day, Egypt's nights bordered on _icy_. All sensible parties had long since left the rooftop due to the plummeting temperatures; only China stayed, because despite his age, even he could be young and stupid at times. He had always been a bit too in-love with the sky, with the stars and constellations—and the moon was just so pretty and bright and almost-round, _round like reunion—_

And, alright, maybe China liked to indulge sometimes and dream about impossible things.

"You don't have to stay here, you know."

Ah. Greece had come to pull him from his idiocy. Or perhaps join him in it.

China did not answer her right away. He mulled instead over his questions—questions that had clung to the back of his mind like fog on mountains. After what was likely an inappropriate length time to go without acknowledging someone, he looked up.

"What does it mean to be impure?"

Greece studied him. "This is bothering you," she said. When he neither confirmed nor rejected her observation, she crouched down to join him on the ground. "Well…it's simple. Impurity is moral corruption."

Moral corruption. He smiled wryly; he'd thought as much.

"And how would one, that is, if they wanted to…" His hand twitched as he searched for a valid term. "Well, _purify_ oneself, for lack of a better phrase?"

Greece propped her elbow on her knee. "I think you are going about this the wrong way."

"How so?"

She answered his question with another. "What are you basing this on?"

_Everything_, he thought, with a wistful glance toward the moon. _I'm basing this on past and present, war and regret, brothers and sisters. I'm basing this on everything._

"The magic in Alexander's tomb," he said aloud, barely catching the way Greece's nose wrinkled in—distaste? Disapproval?

"And you see nothing wrong with gauging morality with a curse not meant for one of your kind?"

China frowned at her. "I'd like to think that basic morality transcends cultures."

"That's not what I meant." She propped her chin against her palm. "Whom is the curse meant for?"

He shook his head, not understanding. "Thieves?" he suggested. "Vandals?" Greece snorted at that, though he couldn't imagine why. "Just…people in general, I suppose."

"And what are you?"

"I'm…"

Realization.

Oh.

_Oh_.

"But," he said, before shutting up, not trusting himself to speak.

There was something almost sad in Greece's gaze.

"You know it, too, don't you?" she asked. "You are like me, I can tell. A thinker. Our place in the world, what others take for granted, we _question_. Rome—"

It was her turn to abruptly stop mid-sentence. China watched her, thinking about thinking, thinking about _not thinking_.

"What are we to you, then?" he asked finally. "Our kind?"

Her answer was surprisingly swift.

"The sum of our people," she murmured, voice taking on that odd, distant tone she'd had when he first met her on the pier. "We are the sum of our people, in all the best and worst ways. From their triumphs to their downfalls, from the most breathtaking compassion to the most unspeakable of evils—it's all our burden to bear. For every great kindness lifting us up, there is depravity pulling us down." She twisted absently at the chipped bracelet on her wrist. "It has always been harder to fly than to fall."

After a moment of contemplation, China asked her if she was worried about falling.

She was still looking at something he could not see when she answered: "It's not me I'm worried about."

Ghosts. He could see the ghosts in her eyes. Mostly because they matched the ones in his.

(A young man, a brother-no-more, shouting at him on the shores of the Liaodong. A boy, so small and rude, claiming himself the Land of the Rising Sun, and China thinking, _I won't mess up this time_. A little girl, shying away from shadowy boats on the horizon of Nanyue, and _I will protect you,_ and failed promises. Three children asking, _Where's big brother Gojoseon_, and China, silent and haunted by the memories of the great city Wanggeom-seong, fallen to dust in yet another war, and Gojoseon himself, whose last words burned searingly wry—)

_(Again, China?)_

Greece was looking across the city. Egypt's rooftop provided a clear view of the dark sea, where the nightly firelight of the Lighthouse of Alexandria could be seen, shining, in the distance.

"I don't pretend to understand everything," she said. "I don't think anyone does. What are we, indeed?"

"Personification," China said quietly.

"Symbols," Greece agreed. "Representations. But do we represent our people, or do our people represent us?"

"What's the difference?"

"What's the difference between cause and effect?"

They fell into a pensive silence.

"Do you know, China, there is a country—a province—named Macedon," Greece said. Her voice had gone very, very soft. "We used to be friends. But Macedon had a grand vision, you see—he wanted to conquer the world. He started with me." Her eyes moved to focus on the stars. "Alexander was one of his, and came the closest, I think, before it all came tumbling down. It is…so very long in the past, but I still remember. Fires, and riots, and…so much fighting." Distracted, she continued twirl at her bracelet. "We used to be friends."

"Do you forgive him?" he asked, aware that it was none of his business but desperately needing to _know_.

"Yes. No. It's difficult to tell, sometimes."

_Unforgiven_, China thought, and why did the moon seem so cold, all of a sudden? Why did—_he needed this_—

"I had an older brother," were the words that suddenly came spilling from his mouth and oh sky oh heaven _what was he saying_. "I had an older brother, but then I hurt him, took his land, split him into three. My own brother, can you believe it? He'd always been there, always, but now he's gone because he _raised_ me and I thanked him with a knife in the back, and tell me, Greece, tell me if that isn't the most reprehensible thing you've ever heard, tell me if something like that can ever be _forgiven._"

His head pounded. He'd barely known Greece for a day, he didn't know why he was telling her this, he hadn't told _anyone_ this, not even Yuezhi, who might have halfway guessed but certainly didn't know the whole story. Because Yuezhi was too _kind,_ in that decidedly unkind way of hers, roundabout and brash, and maybe, maybe that wasn't what China was looking for. _Someone_ had to know, had to _condemn_—

He felt tired.

Cloth rustled as Greece shifted closer, took his hands in hers, gently lifting them away from his eyes. Strange. It seemed that, somewhere along the way, he'd buried his face in his palms—but he couldn't remember doing so.

"I understand," she said. "Family, for our kind, is…difficult."

She didn't have to elaborate. China _knew_. Older brothers and younger brothers and—friends, _friends_, hadn't Yuezhi been talking about friends? But if they were nothing more than the sum of their people, how could there be room for anything else?

"What was his name?" Greece asked.

"Gojoseon. The…" He drew a ragged breath. "The Land of the Morning Calm."

"That's quite the mouthful."

He suddenly felt like crying. He laughed instead. "It is, isn't it?"

"I have a brother, too," Greece said. "We don't always get along, but I still love him very much."

"What is his name?"

If Greece was at all bothered by him throwing her words back at her, she certainly didn't show it.

Instead, she smiled.

"His name," she said, "is Macedon."

—:—

Octavian waved at Rome as he approached. The young Roman leader was, as per usual, wearing a beatific smile. His clothes rippled in the morning breeze. Sunlight bounced off his hair like dolphins in the Mediterranean.

"Good morning, my dear Rome, there you are! Come now, we are to depart soon, no?"

Rome blinked, a bit dazzled. "A-Ah? Leaving already? But—we aren't going to visit the Musaeum, maybe, or the Ptolemies?"

"The _Ptolemies_." Octavian laughed. "I came to see a king, not a row of corpses."

Well, ouch. Thank goodness Egypt wasn't here.

Speaking of which—

"I was talking to Egypt earlier," Rome said.

"Oh?"

"Yes, and she…"

Rome paused, wondering just how blunt he ought to be. Subtlety? Oh, but he wasn't one to go about slinking in the shadows. No, Rome fancied himself the kind of man who liked basking in the simple glories of life. He and Octavian were rather different in that respect, he supposed.

He eventually settled on, "How much did you know?"

Octavian looked bemused. "I'm afraid you'll have to be a bit clearer than _that_."

Rome raised his eyes to the sky and pondered. He thought of Octavian's general lack of surprise. Of Egypt's words, bitter and precise. The way Octavian had been talking to Egypt beforehand, outside the chamber. Octavian's unsettling fascination with the curse. And Germa—Bast—the _cat_, the way the cat had tripped him—had it been, perhaps, _not_ an accident?

_Bastet would have protected you anyway_.

"How much," said Rome, "did you know about the curse? Before?"

Octavian gave him an offhand smile that was both distant and mildly impressed. "Well, now. You _have_ grown up a bit," he said, sounding approving.

If that wasn't blatant confirmation, then Rome didn't know what _was_.

"Why?" Rome asked. He knew he probably should have been angrier about this, but Octavian generally had Good Reasons for why he did things. He decided, magnanimously, to give his boss the benefit of doubt.

Octavian hummed. "Remind me, Rome, of what you did down there. How did you approach the jackals, the serpopards?"

"Well, we ran—"

"After."

"We…fought?"

"Yes." Octavian leaned forward, eyes gleaming. "You approached it like war. Now tell me this: was it necessary?"

"No," he said. He'd realized, down in the tomb, belatedly—well, not that it had done them much good. But still.

"How long have you been fighting, Rome?"

"Well, I…" He paused to think. "I think…two hundred years, by now."

His own answer surprised himself. Great gods, had it really been that long? Two hundred years of fighting…since when had warfare become the status quo?

Octavian studied him closely. He seemed to like whatever it was that he found in Rome's expression, because his smile deepened.

"I have a vision, my friend," Octavian said, his gaze growing intense, "of greatness and peace and prosperity in a land of perpetual conflict. I have a vision that we may be happy and successful _without_ having to fight all the damned time. I have a vision to close the Gates of Janus, but for that"—he tapped Rome on the forehead—"I really need you to stop thinking in terms of war."

Rome rubbed at his head. "But if it was all just for…wait, did you mean for Parthia to be there, then?"

"You are not the only one who would benefit from a—_change in approach, _yes?" Octavian clasped his hands behind his back. "Besides, if you would be fighting anyway, I may as well gain something from it. Nothing unites more than a common cause, or a common enemy. Wouldn't you agree?"

Tests within tests, plans within plans; it was starting to make his head spin. How many personal agendas could one man cram into a single event? He'd had his share of crazy bosses, but this one, _this one_—

Rome sent his boss an expression that quite plainly said: _I thought you were sane_.

Octavian's smile, too excessively innocent to be real, quite plainly replied: _La la la __I'm an angel._

But _surely_, Rome reasoned, surely Octavian couldn't have accounted for _everything_, right? No one could have foreseen China and Yuezhi crashing in like that. Even Egypt herself had miscalculated her own curse.

Still, there was one thing he wanted to know.

"Octavian, how long have you—did you drag me and Parthia all the way to Egypt just to…_curse_ us?" The statement meant to come out exasperated, but instead came out awed, because it was so very _fascinating_, how utterly crazy Octavian was turning out to be.

Distant cries of gulls arched through the air. Octavian turned to look toward the sea.

"Don't be silly, Rome," he said placidly. "I only came to visit Alexander, didn't I?"

—:—

"Yuezhi, I was—I was looking at the moon last night."

An odd look. "Uh…okay. That's nice, China."

Awkward fidgeting. "What I mean to say is…thank you. For…_this_."

Silence.

Then a laugh. "Ready to go back, are you? Guess it's about time we head east. Got a lot of cool stuff to sell now, anyway."

"Really, thank you. I mean it, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, you owe me big. Buy my jade and bring me princesses and we'll call it even."

"…No princesses."

"Tch, spoilspor—"

"But the jade, I'll take."

Another laugh. More fond, this time. "You always did like jade."

—:—

"I still don't like you," Rome told Parthia later, as they were retrieving their camels. Just because they were supposedly _friends_ now, didn't mean they had to _like_ each other, right?

"Oh, the feeling is mutual," Parthia assured him.

A contented silence spread between them. Rome began to cheerfully wage war against his pack animal, and Parthia had a vague sort of half-smile on his face, and all was well with the world. Because this, Rome mused, was what happened when you spent too much time running around in a hellish version of the Egyptian underworld. You started longing for those simple, stupid things in life, like diabolical Parthians and abusive camels.

"You know, I was thinking of starting a new industry," Rome commented.

"Indeed?" Parthia was unusually amiable. Then again, Rome's camel was in a bad mood, which generally meant that Parthia was in a good mood.

Rome grinned, and launched into an impassioned explanation of his grandiose vision. It had been something on his mind ever since he'd taken Germania on that tour of the Mediterranean, so many years ago.

"I call it _tourism_," Rome finished proudly.

Parthia shook his head. "That," he said, a note of amusement in his voice, "is quite possibly the most impractical business I've ever heard."

"Hey, take that back!"

"You wish for me to lie to you instead?"

"No, I wish for you to stop being so narrow-minded—"

"What you're confusing for narrow-mindedness is just _common sense_—"

"I'll show you common sense!"

They happily argued all the way back to where the rest of the caravan stood outside, waiting for them.

—:—

So, it had come to this. Just as their two groups had arrived at roughly the same time, so too did they depart at roughly the same time. Strange, how these things worked.

Greece and Egypt had gone to see them off at the gate, with farewells on the part of Greece and apologies on the part of Egypt. Almost immediately, Rome had shuffled forward and produced from nowhere an arrangement of water lilies ("How," Yuezhi demanded, "does he keep _doing_ that?"). He presented these to Egypt, whose stern visage softened minutely as she accepted them. Off to the side, Greece took the time to exchange some last-minute (exaggeratedly philosophical) quips with China, much to general incomprehension. Meanwhile, Octavian was discussing politics with Parthia, and Yuezhi was trying to sell a small roll of silk to one of the Parthian bodyguards. It felt like everyone had shown up; even Bastet made a brief reappearance, grudgingly allowing herself to be cooed over by Rome as she emerged from Egypt's arms.

At last, the two parties turned to each other.

"It's been a pleasure," Rome said, with a gallant flourish.

"That's actually kind of debatable," Yuezhi said.

"Ignore her," China said diplomatically. "It has been an honor, Roman Empire, to fight alongside you. And it is wonderful as well, to finally be able to put a face to the name. "

All four proceeded to say their goodbyes.

"Farewell, then!"

"Until next time."

"Don't be a stranger!"

"I wish you both the best."

They nodded and beamed at each other. China gave a slight bow, and Rome wiped away a flood of imaginary tears. Then, with their touching goodbye scene finished, they turned and headed home.

…In the same direction.

A few minutes passed in silence as they awkwardly trudged together, neither party willing to acknowledge the other. China and Parthia stared devoutly forward. Yuezhi started counting her money. Octavian began to hum.

Finally, Rome coughed.

"We, er, seem to be headed the same way, yes?"

"Um. Quite."

"I thought you lived across the sea," Yuezhi spoke up, vaguely accusing. "Y'know, in the _other_ direction."

"We have to drop off Parthia first," Rome explained. "Something about diplomacy—"

"Drop off? You make me sound like a toddler—"

Rome cut him off with a wave and a laugh. "But anyway," he said, his face lighting up, "if it makes no difference to anyone—we could travel some of the route together! Get to know each other a little more."

The other three looked at him in surprise, as if such a possibility had not occurred to them.

China, for his part, thought of a recent conversation in the moonlight, and _wondered_. He had learned, long ago, that these kinds of relationships were _human_ constructs. Parent, child, sibling, spouse, friend. It was difficult, so difficult, to apply such things to creatures such as they, almost-human-but-not-quite.

He rather thought that four people like _them_, with all their flaws and obligations and baggage, really had no business pursuing a friendship. He thought perhaps that it was doomed to fail. Written in the stars by the hand of fate.

China looked over at Rome, whose face was so open and eager—the kind of expression that invited comparison to puppies. He made up his mind.

"Actually," said China, pulling up a smile, "that sounds rather nice."

As Yuezhi would say: screw fate.

Maybe it was a bad idea. But they were damned well going to _try_.

* * *

—:—

* * *

**Footnotes****:**

**1] Timeline**: Still roughly 30 BC, but for the last time, since this chapter concludes the Egyptian arc. (Finally!) Anyway, it was around this time that Rome made the transition from Roman Republic to Roman Empire. Note that it was already an empire in everything but name, so this was more of a change in title than anything else. More significantly, this was the start of a new era in Roman history—the Pax Romana, or "Roman Peace," a miraculous period of relative peace established by the first emperor, Augustus (aka Octavian). Until then Rome had been at constant warfare, so the default mentality of Romans went something along the lines of: "War war war heck yeah war!" Augustus faced the hefty challenge of getting his people to accept that, no, you _don't_ have to be fighting all the time, and yes, peace is a totally awesome method of living. Augustus succeeded, because he's a political badass.

**2] Epagomenal days**: Egyptian timekeeping is interesting in that they have five days that aren't actually part of any month, but instead float mysteriously apart from the rest of the calendar. These are the Five Epagomenal Days, the "five days out of time," and were supposedly the birthdays of the five main Egyptian deities. In Egyptian magic (_heka_), performing spells on an epagomenal day was a big no-go, since it was considered to be very unlucky. (It doesn't help here that the fifth epagomenal day is devoted to Nephthys, the goddess of death.)

**3] Bastet**: Egyptian goddess of protection, often represented as a cat.

**4] Dining on the roof**: In ancient Egypt, it wasn't uncommon for people to eat on their rooftops. The kitchen was often located either here, or in a corner of the courtyard below. In any case, cooking was generally something done in open air.

**5] Round moon**: In China, "roundness" (_yuan_) symbolizes "reunion" (_tuan yuan_). That's why mooncakes are round, and why the full moon is so significant in Chinese culture. There's an entire holiday dedicated to the full moon, called the Mid-Autumn Festival. Family reunion is a _big thing_ in this celebration.

**6] China and Greece, philosophy**: Okay, this is really cool. You know China and Confucius? That was during a time in China known rather inspiringly as the Golden Age of Chinese Philosophy, and less inspiringly as the Warring States Period. _Nearly simultaneously_, ancient Greece was experiencing a similar blossoming of philosophical thought. You know Socrates? Classical Greek thinker who laid down the foundations of modern Western philosophy? Yeah. Lived in roughly the same time period that Confucius did. (Well, Socrates was a nine-year-old kid when Confucius died, but still. Same era.) Anyway, I just find it fascinating that two cultures with nonexistent mutual awareness, and separated by enormous geographical distance, somehow managed to be so in sync with one another. Socrates and Confucius _alone_ have introduced ways of thinking that would transform entire _civilizations_ to come, in their respective Western and Eastern spheres. Ah, if only China and Ancient Greece had more interaction—they'd totally bond over philosophy.

**7] Wanggeom-seong**: Capital city of Gojoseon (ancient Korea). Fell to the Han Chinese at the end of the Gojoseon–Han War.

**8] Macedon**: Reached the height of its expansion under the reign of Alexander the Great. Later fell to Rome and became the Roman province of Macedonia. I would imagine Greece has complicated feelings about Alexander—on one hand, he was responsible for a huge dissemination of Greek culture; on the other, there were some rather ruthlessly suppressed Greek rebellions under his rule, as well as lot of natural animosity between Macedonians and Greeks that existed beforehand. Truthfully, I'm a bit wary of approaching this topic, due to the whole Macedonia/Greek controversy. Suffice to say that all mention of "Macedon" and "Greece" refer to the ancient kingdoms, not the contemporary ones.

**9] Gates of Janus**: Janus is the Roman god of beginnings and transitions. In the Temple of Janus, the Gates were opened in times of war, and closed in times of peace. Augustus closed the Gates three times.

**10] Tourism**: A lot of the stuff Augustus did during his rule helped facilitate travel, like getting rid of pirates, and improving infrastructure (there's a reason for the idiom "all roads lead to Rome," after all). With safe highways, as well as inns and guides, tourism was born. It was an activity for the wealthy and educated, and Roman scholars and aristocrats would go out exploring places like Greece and Turkey and Egypt.

* * *

—:—

* * *

**Extra nonsense:**

Germania woke early.

He liked waking up early. Dawn was a wonderful time of day, with its gentle sunrises and crisp air and trilling birdsongs. Today's morning was no less beautiful than usual, and he found himself savoring the familiar sense of tranquility that settled quiet and comforting over his shoulders, like a beloved and well-worn blanket.

As he rose from bed and went about his daily rounds, he heard a knock at the door. Curious, he went to answer it.

"Germania," said Rome, an urgent expression on his face. "You wouldn't happen to secretly be a woman, too, would you?"

Calmly, Germania shut the door and went back to sleep.


End file.
